In this section I would be putting together all the information regarding bridge facilites in the various cities in India.The information may be sketchy at present but would be made comprehensive in future.
Lucknow Allahabad Varanasi Meerut Dehradun Delhi Chandigarh Chennai Mumbai Moradabad Jaipur Pune Kanpur Asansol Ghaziabad Bangalore
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.
UP state selection trials to select a team and three pairs from state started on 26th February at Allahabad Gymkhana, Allahabad.In the three years that I've been to the state championship , this year has seen the poorest participation in the championship. In all there were only six teams taking part five of which from Allahabad itself. This has rendered this year's chamiponship as a local event. May be not many teams from state want to visit Mt. Abu. Another fact is the timing of the event which occurs just before Holi which might have dissuaded some teams from participating.UPBA must take more effort towards ensuring decent competition to select a team to represent the state. This also puts a question mark on the importance of summer nationals for UP state championship where only winner is entitled to sponsorship gets more participation inspite of the fact that winter nationals an open event. The technical organization of the pairs event was also questionable. There was an elimination of just 18 deals for 20 pairs to be pruned to 12. In IMP scoring 18 deals are not sufficient. In all only 40 deals were played when organizers had full day in which around 60 deals can be played easily.
This year's Seth Ram Niwas Lohia Championship Which took place at Kanpur from March 11-14, 1999 saw very good participation. 64 teams took part in the duplicate event which should be a record of sorts for any event in UP.It was also nice to see a number of ladies adding colour to the event.
Amity Bridge Championship took place at Golf course NOIDA from April 2 - 4 1999. The tournament was sponsored by Amity Bridge Club of Amity Business School.
Amity Business School intend to introduce Bridge in the curriculum, this is something unheard of in India.
Kunwar Murli Manohar Memorial All India Bridge Tournament would be held from 6th-9th May 1999 at The Claridges-Corbett Hideway-Garjia
(Corbett National Park).This is a leisure cum serious bridge event. The entry is restircted to 28 teams only, the entry fee is Rs.12000/- per team
of four.The entry fee takes care of boarding,lodging,tournament entry fee & entertainment.
World Wide Simultaneous Pairs Championship scheduled to be held on June 4 & 5, 1999 has been cancelled by WBF.
The tournament which is still known by its first Sponsors Epson didn't take place in India in 1998 also due to
non-participation by 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 from Amity Bridge Championship which took place in NOIDA. This deal got best card play award.
| Dealer: North Vul: NS Lead:  A | NORTH 10 9 8 3 2 A 9 310 10 8 5 3 | |
| WEST6 5J 7 5A K Q 9 8 3Q J | EASTQ J 7Q 10 47 6 4 2K 6 4 | |
| SOUTHA K 4K 8 6 3J 5A 9 7 2 |
| North | East | South | West |
| Pass | Pass | 1 NT | Pass |
| 2 | Pass | 2 | Pass |
| Pass | Pass |
This deal which won the best play award was played by Ashok Goel.
Ashok Goel is well known person in Indian Bridge circle.His family owns Dhampur Sugar Mills in UP. He has formed a partnership with Kamal Mukherji ,an Ace player, and plays in the India Blue team of Ashok Ruia. At NOIDA his own team Dhampur Sugar Mills was taking part in the duplicate event.
This deal occured in the second qualifying session of the pairs event. Ashok was South and opened 1 NT and played in 2 Spades after his partner bid 2 Hearts which was transfer to Spades.
On Diamond Ace lead at the out set there are 5 losers in this deal for North till a double finesse is taken in Spades. But Ashok played elegently.
He won the Heart switch with King and ruffed Diamond Jack and cashed his Heart Ace and exited with a Heart. West won the trick with Heart Jack and played Club Queen.Ashok won with Club Ace , took his Ace and King of Spades and exited with a Club.
West was truly end played and conceded a ruff and discard on Diamond. So one club went on Diamond ruff and another on the good Heart and Ashok made three Spades and collected most of the matchpoints on the deal.