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. 250 per annum and all regular players are expected to become members of the association. The venue for these tournaments is Avadh Gymkhana The address is: Avadh Gymkhana,Near Bhatkhande Music Academy, 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.
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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.
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.
The 13th Worldwide Simultaneous Pairs event , which in the past have been sponsored by EPSON and Alcatel, took place on June 5 & 6 1998. The event didn't take place in India for the first time since the inception of the event.According to WBF (World Bridge Federation) the BFI (Bridge Federation of India) decided not to participate in this year's event despite having the knowledge of the event three months in advance.
Modipon Bridge tournament is taking place at Intercontinental Hotel Delhi from 6-9 August. The top teams of the country are expected to take part.
In this section I would cover one good deal which appeared in the Weekly Bridge Tournaments at Lucknow or in a recent tournament with explainations.
This week's deal is very simple and most of you would arrive at right decision anyway.
Dealer: East
Vul : None
lead : DK
| S | K 9 | |||||||||||
| H | 10 x x x | |||||||||||
| D | A K x | |||||||||||
| C | K 10 x x | |||||||||||
| S | A Q 8 x x | S | 10 7 x x | |||||||||
| H | x | H | A K Q | |||||||||
| D | Q x x | D | 10 8 x | |||||||||
| C | A x x x | C | x x x | |||||||||
| S | J x | |||||||||||
| H | J x x x x | |||||||||||
| D | J 9 x x | |||||||||||
| C | Q J |
Bidding
| East | South | West | North |
| Pass | Pass | 1 S | X |
| 2 S | 3 H | 3 S | 4 H |
| 4 S | Pass | Pass | X |
| Pass | Pass | Pass | |
Consider this deal where West is playing 4 Spades doubled.
The key question is would you bid 4 spades in east's position ?
The answer probably is no. Most players in East's position would choose to double 4 hearts on their gut feel rather than bid 4 spades.
Is there any merit in 4 Spades bid ? Let us analyse this.
The merit in 4 Spades bid is only when 4 spades makes but four hearts is upto two down. Then should you risk the odd chance of 4 spades making or play for safe 4 hearts to go down ? This analysis is done through Law of total tricks which states that total number of tricks available in any deal is equal to total number of trumps held by both sides. An excellent expostulation of this law is done by Larry Cohen in his book To Bid Or Not To Bid.
Let us look at this deal according to the law. There are 18 total trumps in this deal nine each for both sides but there are only 16 tricks. Both 4 hearts and 4 spades are two down. Why does this happen? This is because total trumps are reduced by two due to spade king being wrong and three trricks in hearts being available for opponents. This reduces West's tricks from ten to eight.
So East shouldn't bid 4 spades. But consider the case when west holds 6 spades and spade king is correct , then 4 spades would make but 4 hearts is only two down. You would now say that this is because the total number of trumps are now 19. That is true but look at other crucial part can spade king be correct in this type of bidding sequence ?
Following very good bridge sites are available for any bridge enthusiast:
Some other bridge sites are: