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 Durgapur Bangalore Chennai Ranchi
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.
A prize money bridge event would take place at Delhi Gymkhana,Delhi from November 12-14, 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 is on psychs.
| Dealer:East Vul:None Lead:  4 | NORTH7 5 3 A K J 4 2 10 5 4 6 3 | |
| WESTQ 10 8 46K 8 7 3J 9 7 4 | EASTA K 9 27 5Q J 9 6A K 8 | |
| SOUTHJ 6Q 10 9 8 3A 2Q 10 5 2 |
| East | South | West | North |
| 1 | 1 | X | 1 |
| Pass | Pass | X | 2 |
| Pass | Pass | Pass |
This week's deal is from UP state championship which took place at Bareilly from 29th -31st October 1999. This deal shows a psych situation which probably is very commonly used. The story is short.
This deal occurred in the matchpoint pairs event where I was East. I opened strong (17+ HCP) one Club, my LHO overcalled 1 Heart and my partner doubled which showed 5-7 HCP. My RHO now came 1 Spade and I passed , my LHO also passed and my partner doubled again. My RHO now reverted to Hearts and the bidding came back to me. I chose to pass and the deal was played in 2 Hearts. If you look at the deal we make 4 Spades.
So my RHO had psyched and I got pscyhed!
My RHO was Vijay Agarwal. He is the leading player of UP with most number of masterpoints to his credit. When my partner doubled his 1 Spade bid and he reverted to 2 Hearts it looked to me that he has psyched. So I made enquiries to his partner about whether he psychs or not. In UP there is no tradition of carrying convention cards where it is required to write about psychs. The answer that I got from my RHO was that he is taking his partner's bid as suit and I never got to know the frequency of my LHO's psychs. My partner's double showed that he had some Spades and he didn't have a five card minor suit to bid. So I thought we may be playing in 4-3 Spade fit since I had doubleton Heart with Spade suit breaking badly and I passed. If I had five cards of Spades I would have surely bid 2 Spades, with four cards Spades that element of doubt remained.
After the deal was over Vijay Agarwal told me that I when there is a psych and partner of the psych maker doesn't support the suit with four cards then director should be called.
In reality even that doesn't happen. Gasper Rodericks is the oldest member of the Lucknow bridge association. In his seventies now he is known to psych frequently. I was playing against him in the HINDALCO all India tournament at Renukoot. We were playing in the bottom half and the results of the match didn't matter. Along came this deal.
| Dealer:South Vul:None Lead: 6 | NORTHK Q J 5 3Q 9 6 2K 7K 8 | |
| WEST9 8 4 25 33Q 9 7 6 4 3 | EAST10A J 8 4Q 10 9 4J 10 5 2 | |
| SOUTHA 7 6K 10 7A J 8 6 5 2A |
| South | West | North | East |
| 1 | 1 | X | Pass |
| 2 | Pass | 2 | Pass |
| 2 NT | Pass | 4 NT | Pass |
| 5 | Pass | 6 NT | Pass |
| Pass | Pass |
I opened strong (17+HCP) one Club and Rodericks overcalled one Heart my partner doubled which showed 5-7 HCP or 8+ HCP and otherwise unbiddable cards. Rodericks was playing with his regular partner who knew his bidding habits well. Bidding went to him and he passed. I came in with 2 Diamonds over which my partner came in with a cue bid of 2 Hearts. I responded 2 NT and he took control by asking for Aces and signed off in 6 NT when I showed two Aces.
I was on play. A Club was led and the dummy came down. Since I knew Rodericks psychs, a look a dummy showed that this might be a Club psych since between dummy and my cards there were just three Clubs. But since his partner didn' support Hearts I thought Rodericks could still be 5-5 in Hearts and Clubs. One thing was clear that Diamonds were not breaking. So I had eleven top tricks twelth had to come from Hearts.
My problem was that since Rodericks' partner had passed I believed him and played him for Hearts. I started with Heart King and even when it lost to East's Ace I took Heart 9 finesse and went five down! The results of the deal were immaterial as our opponents in closed room had only bid game. If I had not taken Heart 9 finesse I would have gone only one down.
I closer look at the deal would suggest that I played wrong. I should have played Spades first. When East shows out in second round I should then play for psych as Rodericks could not have Hearts , Spades and Clubs. This would have gone wrong only when East holds long Clubs and Rodericks atcually holding Hearts.
But even if a psych can be made out from card play fairer play suggests that if partners of frequent psychers tend to pass their suit bids especially on strong Club openings they should mention this in their convention cards.