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 Delhi Chandigarh Chennai Mumbai
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 to select a team and three pairs from state started on 26th February at Allahabad Gymkhana, Allahabad.In the three years that I've been to the state championship , this year has seen the poorest participation in the championship. In all there were only six teams taking part five of which from Allahabad itself. This has rendered this year's chamiponship as a local event. May be not many teams from state want to visit Mt. Abu. Another fact is the timing of the event which occurs just before Holi which might have dissuaded some teams from participating.UPBA must take more effort towards ensuring decent competition to select a team to
represent the state. This also puts a question mark on the importance of summer nationals for UP state championship where only winner is entitled to sponsorship gets more participation inspite of the fact that winter nationals an open event. The technical organization of the pairs event was also questionable. There was an elimination of just 18 deals for 20 pairs to be pruned to 12. In IMP scoring 18 deals are not sufficient. In all only 40 deals were played when organizers had full day in which around 60 deals can be played easily.
Lohia bridge championship would be held at Kanpur in 11-14 March 1999.
National Pairs at Home for Ubhaykar and Arun Swamy Trophies would take place on March 28th.
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 poses lead problem.
| Dealer: North Vul: NS Lead:  4 | NORTH A Q 4 3 2 7 3 2 A 10 7 5 2 | |
| WESTK 10 9 8 6 4-K Q J 9 6 48 | EASTJ 7 5A 10 9 7 5 5 K 9 6 3 | |
| SOUTH3 2 K Q J 8 6A 10 8Q J 4 |
| North | East | South | West |
| Pass | Pass | 1 | 1 |
| 1 NT | 2 | Pass | 4 |
| Pass | Pass | Pass | |
As in previous week,this week's problem is of finding the right lead.Perhaps this problem is a bit easier.
South opens one Heart after two passes. West overcallas 1 Spade and North bids 1 NT instead of supporting partner in Hearts.When East supports with 2 Spades West jumps to 4 Spades which ends the auction.
What should North lead ?
In the deal shown North chose to lead partner's suit and the contract got made. But believe me this gave some IMPs to the NS pair. This deal ocurred in a pairs event where scoring was on IMP. Practically every NS has chosen to double the 4 Spade contract of EW and at all those tables the contract was made. So this NS Pair saved 5 IMP by not doubling the 4 Spade contract.
Was this a field issue or finding Ace Club or Diamond lead is actually difficult ?
It is my assumption that in this deal bidding at most of the tables would be similar. West would definitely give an impression of a distributional pattern by jumping to 4 Spades. The only variation in the bidding would be the Heart Support shown by North. In the table shown North chose to bid 1 NT.
Leading partner's suit works out well often but on distributional cards side suit lead should also be considered.
It is amazing to note that inspite of the bad break in Heart suit 4 Heart makes and if you don't lead well 5 H doubled is a good sacrifice. But noone I think would ever play this contract in 5 Hearts for even the total trick users need to adjust this deal well!!