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.
Dehradun holds two state level tournaments every year during this time of the year. This year only one tournament is expected to be held.
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 Unusual Notrump.
| Dealer: East Vul: NS Lead:  Q | NORTH A J 9 8 6 9 3K 5 A K Q 7 | |
| WEST10 5 4Q J 10 69 8 6 4 35 | EASTQ8 4Q J 10 7 2J 10 8 6 4 | |
| SOUTHK 7 3 2A K 7 5 2A9 3 2 |
| East | South | West | North |
| Pass | 1 | Pass | 1 |
| Pass | 2 | Pass | 4 NT |
| Pass | 5 | Pass | 6 |
| Pass | Pass | Pass |
Unusual One Notrump is a very good convention. This convention is not very well practised in this part of the world.
Unusual 2 NT is very popular showing minors, here also any two suitor is not prevalent, and so is minor two suitor openings.
This deal shows utility of playing unusual 1 NT.
East passes with his minor two suitor as values are not enough to open a minor two suitor opening. South opens 1 Heart , North responds 1 Spade and a constructive auction is on. After South joins North with 2 Spade , North asks for Aces via Blackwood and conservatively signs of in 6 Spades without even asking for Kings.
EW were lucky. Any other pair would have bid seven after asking Kings. No Aces or King missing and a 5-4 fit in trump suit is sufficient to bid grand slam. It is not necessary that one must have trump queen.
In any other part of the world after 1 Heart - 1 Spade auction East would have bid unusual 1 NT showing minors and West would have jumped to 5 Diamond , after South joins North in Spades. 5 Diamond is a perfectly reasonable bid as West would give at the most 11 HCP to East and since West has 3 HCP only, NS have a game in Spades which has been pre-empted by West.
This 5 Diamond bid obstructs the constructive auction and now the Grand Slam would not bid as avenues of exploration have gone. North at best would bid 6 Spades over which EW can bid 7 Diamond ,only minus 6 and ensures a Top in pairs, without bothering about pushing NS to Grand.
Why East did not bid 1 NT as EW were playing 1 NT as natural which shows 11-12 HCP with check in both suits!!! There is no bigger waste bid than this. Such a NT logically should not be bid and invites a thrashing by NS if bid. Still players prefer to call this NT a common sense bid in this part of the world!