Shantanu Rastogi's Bridge Pageissue 68 (February 7, 2000) |
In this section I would be putting together all the information regarding bridge facilities 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.
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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 lead directing bids.
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| East | South | West | North |
1  | X | 4 | 4  |
| Pass | Pass | 5 | 5 |
| Pass | Pass | Pass |
This deal happened in the duplicate Ruia Trophy qualifying rounds at Hyderabad nationals. It was the sixth round on day one and well past 10 PM in the midnight as schedules had gone haywire. We were a team of four only, so I was playing continuously. After I've played around 60 deals in a day, I normally have a mortifying fear of unforced errors - typically in card play. An error happened but this time in bidding.
My partner opened 1 which was doubled by my RHO and I leapt to 4 . My LHO came in with 4 , my partner & my RHO passed. I came in with 5 !! over which my LHO closed the auction with 5 .
My partner led A and continued with a and the contract got scored. The moment I saw the dummy I realised what had gone wrong.
Any top player in my place would have bid 5 
instead of 5 that I had bid asking for lead. The contract goes down due to two ruffs.
If you see 5 by South always scores but by North doesn't on lead. The lead is difficult to find untill unless lead directing bid is made. Essentially this situation is a lead directing situation though it can be played as suit also in which case it would ask for partner to bid further on fit else revert to the original suit. But normally
good players play this as lead directing.
In closed room our partners allowed our opponents to play in 5 doubled and we lost 11 IMPs. Only if I had been more alert we could have gained 7 IMPs instead of losing 11.
Since we were playing game level bids as mixed raise my partner passed 4
for me to double or bid further but suppose you play game level bid as a pre-emptive raise then even East can bid 5 . Should then the lead directing bid be made at an early stage e.g.
1 - X - 2 is for partnerships to workout ?
Now look at this deal where 5 level bid was actually suit.
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| West | North | East | South |
| 1 | 2  | 4 | 5 |
| 5 | Pass | 5
| Pass |
| Pass | Pass |
I opened 1 playing 17+ . My LHO overcalled 2 (I would discuss ethics of this bid later) , my partner jumped to 4 and my RHO came in with 5 . I offered 5 but my partner reverted to 5 which closed the auction.
I made 5 on A lead. I could have made six also but due to fear of ruff I played safe. Key point is 6 makes.
Since my partner took my 5 bid to be lead directing , he only played in
original suit at 5 level. What do you do in such situation ?
Andrew Robson would have choicest of words for my partner. It is clear that he should introduce suit as early as possible ie at 2 level.
Now for ethics of 2 bid. It is ridiculous that with two Kings and a 4 card
Suit headed by K 10, South hasn't doubled. It points to a partnership understanding and normally such 2 bids should be alerted for my partner may have got misled by this bid.
You would like to visit these sites frequently.
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