Shantanu Rastogi's Bridge Page

issue 9

For your comments please e-mail to srastogi@lw1.vsnl.net.in

1. Bridge Facility in Lucknow, India

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. 350 per annum and all regular players are expected to become members of the association. The venue for these tournaments is Oudh Gymkhana The address is: Oudh Gymkhana,Kaiserbagh, 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 and by increasing the annual subscription.

2. The Convention Card Editor Bridge Card 5.0.6 by Lee Edwards

A convention card editor fills, edits and prints convention cards on computer. Lee Edwards of Lawrenceville, Georgia, USA has designed this very convenient convention card editor for various convention cards. The convention cards which can be filled by this editor are ACBL, SAYC, WBF, WBF(England), EBU, BBL, French, Dutch, Belgian, Sweedish, Italian, Austrian, Ireland, Israeli, Indian & Australian. You can download this software which is freeware from the link mentioned above. Those of you who want to send your comments to Lee Edwards can do so at ledwards@bellsouth.net

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.

3. 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.

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.

The first Rajendra Chaudhary memorial Knockout duplicate bridge tournament is taking place at Oudh Gymkhana, Lucknow on September 16, the total prize money is Rs. 20000/-.This event takes place a day before K.N. Modi bridge tournament at Boat House Club, Nanital which is being held from September 17-20. The Rajendra Golcha memorial bridge tournament is being held at Jaipur from October 9-11. It carries a prize money of Rs. 50000/-.

4. 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 on law of total tricks.

Dealer: West

Vul : None

Lead : D A

SA K
HK 9 7 4
DQ 8 7 6 5
CK 6
S10 5 4 3 2SQ J 9 8 7
HQ J 5HA 3 2
D-DK J 9 4
CJ 8 7 5 2C9
S6
H10 8 6
DA 10 3 2
CA Q 10 4 3

Bidding

WestNorthEastSouth
Pass1 D1 S2 C
2 S3 D3 S5 D
5 SXPassPass
Pass

Consider this deal where East has reached 5 Spades doubled.

North opens one Diamond with the cards which could merit 1 NT opening also. East overcalls 1 Spade and then again bids 3 Spade over North's 3 Diamond after South has made a positive bid of 2 Club and West has supported East with 2 Spade. South now jumps to 5 Diamond and West bids 5 Spade which is doubled by North.

5 Spades is not the correct contract to play as 5 Diamond would not make. The par contract is 3 NT. 3 NT is very difficult to make because rarely would any North play for 4-0 break in diamonds, if east is played for 4 diamonds. Only if it is a par contract deal and someone uses the logic that it requires especial play as it is a par contract deal then only 4-0 break would be played for. In practice Norths would not finesse 6 of diamond as it may lose to singleton 9.

Why have EW reached 5 Spades ? Let us look from law of total tricks point of view. There are a total of 19 total tricks from trumps and due to bad Diamond suit tricks remain only 18.Can you spot what went wrong ?

It is the bid of 3 Spade by East. East should not be bidding 3 Spades with an interior sequence in Diamonds over North's 3 Diamonds. East is not awre as what sort of Spade support West has and the total tricks would certainly be one less. West doesn't know this and if you replace diamond values with Ace of Spades 4 Spades would certainly make and if East has six carder spade 5 Spade can also make.

Do you apply Law of total tricks this way or is it limited to post deal analysis only ?/P>

5. Bridge Links

Following very good bridge sites are available for any bridge enthusiast:

1. American Contract Bridge League (ACBL) Website

2. Canadian Bridge Federation (CBF) Website

3. World Bridge Federation (WBF) Website

4. The Internet Bridge Archive

5. Floater Online Bridge

Some other bridge sites are:

1. Okbridge Website

2. Bridgeworld Website

6. Previous Issues

issue 1 issue 2 issue 3 issue 4 issue 5 issue 6 issue 7 issue 8

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