Lucknow Bridge Association conducts bridge regular bridge tournaments in Lucknow.There are two regular pair events every week, on Tuesdays and Fridays.On Tuesday matchpoint pair event takes place and on Friday IMP pair event takes place. The entry fee is nominal Rs. 15 per person or Rs. 30 per pair for members. All bridge enthusiast all welcome. The membership of Lucknow Bridge Association is nominal Rs. 350 per annum and all regular players are expected to become members of the association. The venue for these tournaments is Oudh Gymkhana The address is: Oudh Gymkhana,Kaiserbagh, Lucknow.The timings are 6:30 pm onwards in the evening.
Lucknow club where the event used to take place earlier has closed down. Lucknow club was an old building which couldn't sustain the rains this year and the roof of its Badminton court, which was adjacent to the lobby where bridge used to take place, fell. Oudh Gymakhana charges Rs. 2000/- per month for making its hall available for bridge, part of which is being paid by raising the entry fee and by increasing the annual subscription.
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In this section I would cover tournaments happening in India and more so the tournaments happening in Northern part of India and in the state of Uttar Pradesh.
The 1998 World Bridge Championship just concluded at Lille, France. Indian performance wasn't up to the mark. Only one Indian team ,Poddar, qualified to the round of 64 in Rosenblum Cup.Similarly only one Indian Pair of Alok Sadhu and Vinay Sharma made it to the finals of Open Pairs event. Poddar team was knocked out in the round of 64 and the lone Indian pair finished 58th.One must say that pair event was very gruelling with only 10% of the 700 odd participants making it to the finals. However we must have higher achieving standards, lauding 58th rank would lead us nowhere. Jaggy Shivdasani pairing with C. Goldberg of US finished best amongst the Indian finalist in the mixed pairs event. It is very sad that there were no Indian participant in the junior event.This year's winners were from Italy ,Angelini in open team and in mixed pairs, and from Poland in open pairs though Michel Rosenberg of USA won $35000 for winning the PAR event.One feels happy at the performance of Larry Cohen who finished runners up in the open pairs alongwith David Berkowitz for his excellent book on law of total tricks has enhanced the bridge pleasure for many.
The first Rajendra Chaudhary memorial Knockout duplicate bridge tournament is taking place at Oudh Gymkhana, Lucknow on September 16, the total prize money is Rs. 20000/-.This event takes place a day before K.N. Modi bridge tournament at Boat House Club, Nanital which is being held from September 17-20. The Rajendra Golcha memorial bridge tournament is being held at Jaipur from October 9-11. It carries a prize money of Rs. 50000/-.
In this section I would cover one good deal which appeared in the Weekly Bridge Tournaments at Lucknow or in a recent tournament with explanations.
This week's deal concentrates on fair playing practices. This deal happened few years back in a tournament in Mumbai.
Dealer: East
Vul : None
Lead : S K
| S | - | |||||||||||
| H | K 10 x x x | |||||||||||
| D | Q x x x | |||||||||||
| C | A x x x | |||||||||||
| S | x x x | S | K Q J x x x | |||||||||
| H | A Q x | H | x x | |||||||||
| D | A x x | D | J x x | |||||||||
| C | J x x x | C | x x | |||||||||
| S | A 10 9 x | |||||||||||
| H | J x x | |||||||||||
| D | K x x | |||||||||||
| C | K Q x |
Bidding
| East | South | West | North |
| 2 S | X | 2 NT | 3 H |
| 3 S | 3 NT | X | 4 H |
| Pass | Pass | X | Pass |
| Pass | Pass | ||
In this deal North was playing an excellent 4 H doubled contract.
The bidding needs some explanation. East opened weak 2 Spade which was doubled by South as takeout. The double here was meant to show opening hand than anything else.North now bids 3 Heart over West's 2 NT on which South bids 3 NT after East has made a competitive bid of 3 Spade. 3 NT was doubled by West and North took the bid out to 4 Heart which was again doubled by West.
Now 4 Heart is making but what happened on the table that day was shocking to say least. It is the most wierd thing that I've witnessed on the bridge table.
I was South and both me and my partner had just about started competitive bridge in Mumbai and on our opponents had been playing bridge for years and one of them had won National title in India also.
Now see what happened when Spade King was led.
My partner played Sapde Ace and after West played small accidently ruffed the trick assuming he had played small from dummy and then went two down in this sitter contract. Have you seen anything like this ?
I couldn't utter a word as I was dummy but most shocking was the way opponents accepted this trick. Seeing the dummy and bidding no sane person can say that my partner had ruffed Ace of Spades to gain an entry into his hand.
Some persons may say that this is the killing instinct. If it is it won't make one a champion in strong field. To me it was very shameless and disgraceful on part of senior players specially West (with the sort of card West had) to have accepted this trick from a young player.
To an outsider this type of deal would raise several queries. They might question that a deal was simply given to the opponents ie tanking, which wasn't true in this case.
Have you ever come across such a shameful incident ?
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