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.
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.
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.
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 is on law of total tricks.
Dealer: South
Vul : EW
Lead : H 8
| S | 5 4 | |||||||||||
| H | K J 10 6 5 4 | |||||||||||
| D | 6 | |||||||||||
| C | Q 9 8 2 | |||||||||||
| S | J 7 2 | S | A 9 6 3 2 | |||||||||
| H | Q 9 3 | H | A 7 2 | |||||||||
| D | A Q 8 4 | D | K J 2 | |||||||||
| C | J 7 5 | C | 6 3 | |||||||||
| S | K Q 10 | |||||||||||
| H | 8 | |||||||||||
| D | 10 9 7 5 3 | |||||||||||
| C | A K 10 4 |
Bidding
| South | West | North | East |
| Pass | Pass | 2 H | 2 S |
| Pass | Pass | Pass | |
This deal is very interesting for those who take interest in Law of Total Tricks.
The bidding is irrlevent but it wouldn't be wrong to say that most South would open bidding with 1 Diamond and most should be able to compete upto 3 Clubs.
Law of total tricks was first introduced by Jean Vernes and since then has been excellently expostulated by Larry Cohen in his books To Bid Or Not To Bid and its sequel Following The Law.
Law of total tricks says that Total tricks on any deal is equal to total number of trumps both sides have. In practice however sometimes total number of tricks are less or more than total number of trumps.This is explained by adjustment. If you are good at adjusting your cards then you would be able to make good total tricks approximations.
This deal is very interesting usually total tricks are off from total trumps by one or two. In this deal EW can make two Spades and NS can make upto 4 Clubs ie there are 18 total tricks (8+10) but there are only 16 trumps (8+8). There are no apparent reason of 18 tricks which can be arrived from total tricks.In adjustment terms both Diamond and Club suits are pure but Spade and Heart are impure so they should cancel out.
I had send this deal to Larry Cohen who has kindly send his comments. This is what Larry has to say about this deal ...
"I suppose the reason for the extra trick is the fact that each red suit can be set up and used as a source of useful tricks for both declarers in black suit contract . In fact the hand is working as true double fit. Without those hearts setting up, there is now way NS could make 10 tricks in Clubs."
For Law users thaer is a corollory of TotaL Tricks adjustments from this deal that a runnable side suit leads to more total tricks and is a positive adjustment factor."
Says Larry "...(a runnable side suit leads to more tricks) is true, but I don't know how you'd know in the bidding that you have a side suit that is going to be set up and used."
Law of total tricks is very useful for competing. Can it evolve to become scientific remains to be seen. At the moment says Larry "...it's just a general approximation that works MOST of the time."
Following very good bridge sites are available for any bridge enthusiast:
Some other bridge sites are: