Shantanu Rastogi's Bridge Page

issue 15

For your comments please e-mail to srastogi@lw1.vsnl.net.in

1. Bridge Facility in Lucknow, India

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.

2. The Convention Card Editor Bridge Card 6.0.1 by Lee Edwards

A convention card editor fills, edits and prints convention cards on computer. Lee Edwards of Lawrenceville, Georgia, USA has designed this very convenient convention card editor for various convention cards. The convention cards which can be filled by this editor are ACBL, SAYC, WBF, WBF(England), EBU, BBL, French, Dutch, Belgian, Sweedish, Italian, Austrian, Ireland, Israeli, Indian & Australian. You can download this software which is freeware from the link mentioned above. Those of you who want to send your comments to Lee Edwards can do so at ledwards@bellsouth.net

For Indian bridge players,lovers & enthusiasts the good news is that the convention card designed by Bridge Federation of India (BFI) appears on this convention card editor. So for those of you who have computers the convention card filling in India is a lot more easier job now.

Lee has been constantly updating the software. The latest version he informs is 6.0.1 with enhanced printing features.The software now supports 21 formats and the convention cards of Germany and South Africa are in offing.

3. Tournament News

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.

Winter Nationals started in Delhi on 7th November.There were widespread protests against the organizers on first playing day. Participants complained of lack of food & water and were unhappy with the lodging arrangements. The play was heldup for about three hours.Though the organizers have pooled in Four Square Sports Gear as sponsors for the event the organization was decidedly poor.

The Jagdish Agarwal Memorial Oudh Bridge Championship would be held in Lucknow from January 14 -17. The event is being accorded national status by the BFI.

4. Deal of the Week

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 dwells on law of vacant spaces. This deal ocurred in duplicate league of Nationls recently.Cards are approximate.

Dealer: South

Vul : NS

Lead : H 7

SK 10
HA K 5
D8 6 5
CJ 10 8 4 2
S6 4 2S9 8 7 5
HJ 4 3 2HQ 10 8 7 6
D10 9 3 2DK 4
C5 6CQ 3
SA Q J 5
H9
DA Q J 7
CA K 9 7

Bidding

SouthWestNorthEast
1 CPass1 DPass
1 SPass3 NTPass
PassPass

NS are playing 3 NT in a deal where 6 is making, the bidding needs some explanation.

South opened Precision 1 Club and North responded 1 Diamond! which shows 0-7 HCP. On South's 1 Spade North bids 3 NT and that is where they played.

The deal is not shown here to ascertain who was to be blamed but to ask readers if they had been with in South's cards what would they have done.

Majority would perhaps choose to pass as usually the bid means to play in 3 NT and in some probability North could have bad eight points.What could bid mean is the question ?

If North is a sensible bidder then he should not have more than doubleton Spades as with three cards of Spades and with a flat hand there are many more bids available. North should also not have as many as four hearts for he would miss a 4-4 fit in hearts if South also has four cards in hearts. This effectively means North is 4432,5332, 5422 or 5431 in minors.This means that one minor suit fit with South is guaranteed. As South is short in Heart suit there is a strong likelyhood of North's points being in Heart suit and since none of the opponent have bid heart suit when they had an opportunity to do so there is good chance that none of them have six card suit so partner is likely to hold 3 cards of heart than 2. In all probability a minor fit is going to play better than NT , so South should not pass but should bid 4 Club or 4 Diamond.

I like you was wondering why North bid 1 Diamond when he has many other bids to choose from and the most likely reason I've found is that the person sitting South was an attractive lady and North perhaps got lost in her than concentrating on his cards!!

5. Bridge Links

Following very good bridge sites are available for any bridge enthusiast:

1. American Contract Bridge League (ACBL) Website

2. Canadian Bridge Federation (CBF) Website

3. World Bridge Federation (WBF) Website

4. The Internet Bridge Archive

5. Floater Online Bridge

6. Bridgeworld Website

7. Bridgebase Website

8.Norwegian Bridgesite Bridge Arkade

9.Anna Gudge's Bridgesite

Some other bridge sites are:

1. Okbridge Website

2. Demicoma Bridge Academy

6. Previous Issues

issue 1 issue 2 issue 3 issue 4 issue 5 issue 6 issue 7 issue 8 issue 9 issue 10 issue 11 issue 12 issue 13 issue 14

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