The participating bridge teams and pairs fully enjoyed the hospitality of Portuguese hosts for Bermuda Bowl, the World Bridge Championship this year.
The city of Estoril surrounded by lush green mountain range provided an ideal setting and cordial atmosphere for the world bridge championship and the quietness of the locale was most suited to the mind game of bridge.
The main event of the world bridge championship, that is, Bermuda Bowl was won by Italy, which humbled the American team after many years in the finals of the competition. The other major bridge events like a Seniors Bowl and Transnational open competition are concurrently held for wider participation of outstanding bridge players.
The Seniors Bowl, which was introduced in 2000 to be a part of the world bridge competition, is now proving to be a significant bridge event along with the Bermuda Bowl. Year by year it has gained momentum as well as popularity among seniors and ranking bridge players hailing from all the four corners of the world.
This year the competition of Seniors Bowl presented a tougher proposition for the participants. However, the US team, which won the world bridge championship four years back, was the winner to deserve prize money as well as trophy. Indonesian team came second and Denmark finished in the third position.
Like in previous years a team from Pakistan also participated but it could not retract to improve its position from the fifteenth spot. Although the Pakistani team comprised of very good bridge players, but they could not do better even though it was going in fifth and sixth position in the earlier stages of the but later they were relegated to the fifteenth position. That shows a high standard of the game in the Seniors Bowl.
A hand is reproduced below which Pakistani team played against Portuguese team and secured good score.
(1) Weak jump overcall
(2) Game force
WEST LED CLUB 3:
When the dummy was spread Nishat Abedi was fairly assured of success of the contract with two losers in heart and possibly one loser in spades. The declarer played the ace of clubs from dummy and discarded nine of spades from hand and played a small trump from the dummy when East played a small the South inserted nine of hearts, which was won by the West with the king of hearts. Next, Debonnaire again played another small club and the dummy played the nine the West covered the ten which Nishat ruffed small and he played a trump and played ten of hearts from the dummy, which was won by East with the ace of hearts, and Teixeira played the king of clubs, which was ruffed by South, with his last trump.
At this stage Nishat played a small diamond to the king in dummy, and he played the queen of hearts to draw the opponent's trump and played a small spade from dummy, the East went up with the ace of spades and that was the last trick for the defence.
In the closed room the Pakistani team-mates of Tariq Rashid and Pervez Mirza sitting in the East-West position on the same hand got away bidding 2 spades and went down two tricks for a positive score for Pakistani team on this deal.
DEALERS EAST
NORTH-SOUTH VULNERABLE:
================================================== North West East South ================================================== S 874 S Q 6532 S A 10 S K J 9 H Q 1084 H K 7 H A 65 H J 932 D KQ 9 D 7 D 532 D AJ 10864 C AQ 9 C 97432 C KJ 1086 C --- ===================================================
THE BIDDING:
==================================================== East South West North ==================================================== Teixeira Nishat Debonnaire Rashidul Abedi Gazi 1 C 2 D(1) Pass 2 NT(2) Pass 3 H Pass 4 H (1) Weak jump overall (2) Game force ====================================================
GOLDEN TIPS:
The Seniors Bowl is longer an International bridge event to be taken lightly.
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