Karachi Gymkhana Summer Festival Bridge Tournament held last month was one of the major duplicate bridge contests in the city of Karachi which attracted participation of 20 leading teams. One team among them came from Hyderabad.
A keen competition was seen during the two-day session in which each team tried its utmost to demonstrate superior playing skill to reach to one of the three top positions of the ladder for entitlement of handsome cash prizes.
As expected three in-form teams namely Candyland, Giants and Data Steel finished first, second and third.
The Candyland, being the national team, was top favourite to win the tournament and it did come to the expectations. However, some of the senior most players Masood Saleem, Jan-e-Alam Fazli, A.R.Allana, Khursheed Hadi, Kamal Shoab and Jawed Meeran were conspicuous by their absence in a big like this in the city.
The bridge tournament was well organised and conducted by the Bridge Sub-committee in keeping with the traditions of Karachi Gymkhana, which was wholly enjoyed by the contestants as well as kibitzers.
And the interest in the proceeding of the intellectual game remained alive till the last was played. Finally the team of Candyland comprising Mohammad Ismail, Mubshir Puri, Hamid Mohiuddin, Ziaullah Baig, Hassan Askari and Hamid Mohiuddin put up excellent and consistent performance to occupy the fist position with good scoring record in each of the round they played.
The other teams which came second and third also showed sparkling and intuitional playing skill, but the lack of partnership understanding came in the way to give a tough time to their opponents.
However, the individual game of Shaeen Iqbal, Masud Mazhar, Major Hassan Zaidi, Gulzar Bilal and Nafees Jaffer was perfectly sound. So was the case with team of Data Steel which equally showed lack of partnership understanding and short of practice and preparedness for the keen bridge contest.
A deal is reproduced below which reflects good partnership understanding between the players of winning Candyland team. Playing Two Over One system the pair of Moammed Ismail and Mubshir Puri reached a small slam which their opponents in the closed room settled for a game in hearts suit as trumps.
SOUTH LED CLUB 8:
When the dummy came down the declarer East appeared brightened up in his face at good bidding between the partners and glaring prospect of making a small slam on distributional advantage of the deal with less High Card Points generally required for a contract at six level.
On the lead the dummy played the club 10, which was covered by queen of clubs from North and The East won the trick with the ace of clubs. At the next trick the East moved a small club from hand and won with club king in the dummy and came back to hand with a ruff of small diamond from the dummy.
At this stage the declarer protectively ruffed a small club in the dummy with 8 of trumps. Next played the ace of hearts and Jack of heart from the dummy which was overtaken with king heart in hand and drew the outstanding trump and claimed the contract losing only one spade trick to the opponents.
Mr Iqbal Umer, the president of Karachi Gymkhana gave away the prizes to the top three teams of the tournament and mementoes and token prizes were also given to Gymkhana bridge players who represented the country in the past in the international bridge competitions.
DEALER WEST
EAST-WEST VULNERABLE:
============================================== North West East South ============================================== S 875 S AK2 S 1096 S QJ43 H 753 H AJ8 H KQ1092 H 64 D KQ65 D 107643 D -------- D AJ72 C Q54 C K10 C AJ963 C 872 ==============================================
THE BIDDING:
==================================== West North East South ==================================== Mohammed Mubashir 1 NT Pass 2 D (1) Pass 3 D (2) Pass 3 H Pass 3 S (3) Pass 4 C (4) Pass 4 S (5) Pass 4 NT (6) Pass 5 H Pass 6 H ====================================
GOLDEN TIPS: A good piece of bidding is worth applauding and rewarding.
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