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 Ghaziabad Kanpur Moradabad Delhi Chandigarh Jaipur Mumbai Pune Asansol Bangalore Chennai
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.
HINDALCO bridge tournament is taking place at HINDALCO,Renukoot from July 30-Aug 1, 1999.
K.N. Modi bridge tournament is taking place at Boat House Club, Nainital from Sept 30-Oct 3, 1999.
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 shows the effect of 4 card overcalls made at 3 level.
| Dealer: South Vul: NS Lead:  9 | NORTH A Q 8 7 4 K K J 9 8 5J 5 | |
| WEST9 5 2J 3 27 6 2A K Q 10 | EASTK 10Q 10 7 4Q 10 4 39 8 6 | |
| SOUTHJ 6 3A 9 8 6 5A7 4 3 2 |
| South | West | North | East |
| Pass | Pass | 1 | Pass |
| 2 | 3 | 3 | Pass |
| 4 | Pass | Pass | Pass |
What happens when you are daredevil and enterprising enough to bid a 4 card suit at 3 level, shows this week's deal.
North opens 1 Spade after two passes and South supports the bid to two level. Now West bids 3 Club! North continues with 3 Diamond and South ends the auction in 4 Spades.
In this deal, which occurred in a matchpoint pairs event, 4 Spades by NS makes and if Clubs are not led initially 4 Spade would make five.
Now it is not necessary for West to bid lead directing 3 Clubs for East to lead club but that bid pinpoints the lead and actually affects the card play.
I was North. Clubs were led and West cashed top two Clubs and continued with Queen.
Moment of truth had come for me. I had to ruff and I didn't even blink an eyelid before ruffing with Queen of Spades!! May be I am not your rock solid declarer but there are many like me. I had given West a five card suit in Clubs! I thought that West can not have Spade King for he would have opened the bidding. So if I ruff with Queen East can at best refuse to ruff. If he over-ruffs I have no problem in making the contract but if he refuses to ruff I can still make the contract if I find Diamond Queen tripleton with East. Alas it was not to be, East actually produced a third Club and I went down in 4 Spades.
So I bid which was supposed to be lead directing at best resulted in defeating the contract.
This deal reminded me of deal number 1 in the 11th Worldwide Simulatneous Pair Championship which in 1996 was sponsored by Alcatel held on June 7, 1996.
| Dealer: North Vul: None Lead: 7 | NORTHA K J 108 4 39 7 6 58 7 | |
| WEST7 410 2A K Q J 3 210 6 4 | EASTQ 9 2K Q10 8A K J 9 5 3 | |
| SOUTH8 6 5 3A J 9 7 6 54Q 2 |
| North | East | South | West |
| Pass | 2 | Pass | 3 |
| Pass | 3 NT | Pass | Pass |
| Pass |
East opens Precision 2 Clubs and West responds 3 Diamonds showing solid Diamond suit and EW paly in 3 NT.
It is not difficult for South to lead passive Spades in this auction but if he decide to be attacking he may lead small heart in hope of finding North with King of Hearts to take the contract down.
The only way to pinpoint lead is to bid a bold 3 Spades with 4 Card suit.
In the auction shown above the only where 3 Spades would go wrong is when East is sitting with 4 Cards of Spades. Actually 3 Spades double was just one down.
My partner led a Heart resulting in all 13 tricks being made by EW and we got only 23 matchpoints out of 100. If I had bid 3 Spades, we could have restricted EW to 10 tricks and could have got 65 matchpoints.