The Bridge Federation of India has been making consistent efforts to promote the game of bridge in the country for a long time. More particularly since 1960 the Federation launched a programme to popularise the intellectual game of cards with determination to come up in ranking among bridge playing countries of the world.
But according to a prevalent tradition in society the game of cards is decried as medium for gambling purposes. Hence generally people avoid playing the game of bridge.
The Federation and its affiliated associations have to a great extent dispelled this stance of mis-conception with regard to bridge in innumerous social and sporting clubs throughout India. And bridge is now on the path of gaining ground as an indoor sport for pastime with purely intellectual challenge.
Taking advantage of the healthy and positive trend the Federation has been able to introduce two premier bridge tournaments annually known as Winter Bridge Nationals and Summer Bridge Nationals . Both these events are gaining momentum with each passing year.
The Winter Bridge Nationals is an open contest in which teams from other countries or individual teams can participate in the contest. Whereas the Summer Bridge Nationals has restricted entry to one team only from each state of India. Recently the 38th, Summer Nationals which was held in Himachal Pradesh concluded on 29th. April, 2007.
There were 34 teams participating who represented their respective States in the country. It was apart from being a great bridge spectacle, a tough competitive exercise. Finally after playing for two days the West Zone secured the top position among 8 teams on the list of winners.
The West Zone scored 50 Match Points to add to the winning score. The match was between the pairs of West Zone and Orissa State. A hand by the winning team is reproduced here which reflects imaginative play by a deceptive move by the declarer which won the deal for better score: Playing the same deal the pair of Orissa went down by one trick.
(1) LIMIT BID 9-11 POINTS SUPPORTING SPADES WEST LED 4 OF CLUBS: When the dummy came down Avinash counted the losers and felt deeply depressed having gone overboard in bidding as he was bound to lose one trick in each suit. But he took it as a challenge to eliminate one loser to be able to make the contract, so he planned the hand at the first trick to the last one which was really a very good approach in making a game plan. After some pause he covered the club lead with a jack in dummy which was won by East with the ace and the South discarding the ten of clubs.
Jagannath after winning the ace of clubs returned a small heart which the declarer won with the ace of hearts, West discarding 8 to encourage for leading suit in the next opportunity. Then the next trick the declarer very subtly led the three of diamonds when the West ducked the dummy played the jack of diamonds which held the trick.
Now at this point, this move was a key play from a very intelligent declarer and then he moved a small spade from the dummy when the east moved the 8 of spades the south won the trick with the ace of spades and confidently moved 7 of clubs towards the dummy and finessed 9 of clubs which won the trick on the king of clubs.
He discarded the loser diamond queen and thus eliminated a certain diamond loser which brought laurels from the kibitzers. Thus he converted a losing contract into a winning proposition. Likewise the winning team put up a good performance all round to deserve the first prize of T. P. Khosla Trophy of the Summer Nationals.
DEALER: SOUTH NORTH-SOUTH VULNERABLE:
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North West East South
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S J 932 S K 10 S 8 S AQ 7654
H Q 96 H K 85 H 7432 H AJ 10
D KJ 10 D A 96 D 87542 D Q 3
C KJ 9 C Q 8542 C A 63 C 107
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THE BIDDING:
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South West North East
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S J 932 S K 10 S 8 S AQ 7654
Avinash Aviram Ashok Jagannath
Gokale Rout Vaidya Pratihari
1 S Pass 3 S (1) Pass
4 Pass Pass Pass
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