Shantanu Rastogi's Bridge Page

issue 78 (April 17, 2000)

First Bridge Web Page From India

For your comments please e-mail to srastogi@lw1.vsnl.net.in Page updated on:April 17, 2000

Bridge Facilities in India

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.

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Tournament News

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 took place at Kanpur. Following pairs have qualified for summer nationals at Sanawar:Kr Vijayanand Singh & Pradeep Singh (Varanasi), CL Arora & Manoj Garg (Dehradun), NP Srivastava & NN Rastogi (Lucknow). MM Nangia & G Rodericks (Lucknow) are reserve one.Maheshwari (Allahabad) won the duplicate event and would be represnting UP at summer nationals. Indresh Agarwal, Sushil Agarwal, Govind Agarwal, A K sinha & B N Rastogi were playing for Maheshwari team.

Rossel Tea bridge tournament concluded at Delhi Gymkhana on 26th March, 2000. Vijay Jolly, Delhi (Vijay Jolly, A Bedi, R Chakravorty, R Nanda, BS Gupta, V Pandey) won the duplicate event amongst 24 teams defeating Delhi Gymkhana. Formidables which has won Indian selection trials for Olympiad at Mastricht was the notable loser in the semi finals.Formidables was playing without Rajesh Dalal, Rajeshwar Tewari & Mrs Kiran Nadar. NK Gupta & B Satyanarayna won the pairs event.

All India Lohia memorial bridge tournament concluded at Ganges Club, Kanpur on March 12, 2000. S Roy Choudhary's team from Calcutta won the duplicate event amongst 45 teams defeating Prahladka, Kanpur. Jaiswal, Lucknow won board a match event and the pairs trophy went to RP Narain & A Ray. Organizers also held 5 consolation pairs event to keep all the participants engaged.

Summer Nationals would take place at Som Dutt Sports Complex, Lawrence School, Sanawar, HP from April 21 -29, 2000.

WBF World Wide Simultaneous Pairs event (formerly known as EPSON) would take place on June 2 & June 3 , 2000. The scoring of this event would be done on internet.

WBF is organising Mind Sports Organization's Worldwide Simultaneous Pairs on August 22 and August 23, 2000. It would be on the lines of Fifth Friday Championship organised by Herman De Wael. The magnitude of the championship would be higher with about 10000 tables results being compiled together.

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Deal of the Week

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 from 14th Cap Gemini tournament.

Dealer:North Vul:None Lead:K	NORTH A 9 4 J 8 4 10 4 K 9 6 5 4
WEST K Q 10 3 2 9 7 6 5 3 2 8 3		EAST 8 7 5 2 9 5 A K 8 A Q J 10
	SOUTH J 6 A K Q 10 7 6 3 Q J 7 2

Bidding

North	East	South	West
Pass	1	3	Pass
Pass	X	Pass	4
Pass	4	Pass	Pass
Pass

Cap Gemini is an important pairs event where select pairs take part. This year it took place from March 23- 26, 2000.

Previous week I showed a deal where I had pre-empted with 17 HCP. This deal shows importance of pre-empting. This year 16 select pairs were Zia Mahmood & Andrew Robson, Meckstroth & Rodwell, Chagas & Branco, Larry Cohen & David Berkowitz, Weinstein & Levin, Hackett & Hackett, Versace & Lauria, Lanzarroti & Buratti, Westra & Leufkens, Hamson & Greco, Anderson & Gullberg, Simons & Pasman, Bertens & Nab, Jassem & Tuszynski, Mihov & Nanev and Lambardi & Lucena.

At 8 table this deal was played simultaneously. The bidding shown is at Zia Mahmood's table who was the only pair to bid the game of 4 4 .

In this deal 4 makes but is difficult to bid. Zia was able to reopen over pre-empt of 3 and Robson gave him choice of games with his bid of 4 . Zia made the contract with an overtrick.

At seven other tables only one played in a part score of 3 , making five. At all other tables except two , where EW allowed NS to play in 3 , NS played in either 3 NT or 4 .

I think the best bid of South over any bid by East is 4 for then it becomes very difficult to reopen. Some good pairs may be playing 3 as weakish and in that case North should raise 3 to 4.

Rodwell started with an overcall of 1 but then managed to bid 3 NT which opponents allowed him to play there inspite of finding fit.

Incidently Zia Mahmood & Andrew Robson won the event this year.

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