The Bridge Federation of India along with its affiliated associations in all 29 provinces of the country is making all efforts to raise the standard of the game to make an impression in the international bridge competitions. For years now the federation has been holding national bridge event every year in order to proliferate interest in the game among its large but fairly educated population through out the country. Usually on an average more than 2000 players participate in the traditional national bridge gala.

This year the bridge national was held in the small city of Aurangabad, which is well known for historic importance, in the province of Andhra Pradesh in early January, which attracted 1600 bridge fans, and the Federation was fairly satisfied with participating players. At the conclusion of the tournament handsome cash prizes were awarded to winning teams from first to fourth position. Besides there were prizes for best bid and best played hand and other consolation prizes primarily as an incentive to the players.

The idea of staging the Bridge National is to generate interest in bridge among people living in less developed parts of the country in order to promote bridge movement. One of the deals, which received the prize for the best bid hand, is reproduced here.

The East-West pair, who belonged to Bangalore, followed the standard American System and was awarded one of the best bid hands. When asked about bidding the five card suit first in preference to six card suit, the South said that he wished to make a reverse bid to reassure his partner about his powerful holding of two suits. If the partner has some support for either of the suits with some well placed high cards there was a possibility of making a slam.

West led the 3 of club

When the dummy came down, the South examined the hand with a sense of satisfaction for having reached a little slam despite the opening bid of one club by the East and saw the possibility of making even seven if the trump distribution happened to be favourable. Accordingly he proceeded with the play by winning the lead with the ace of clubs in the dummy and discarded a spade from hand. Next he played singleton heart from dummy and won the trick in hand with the ace of hearts and ruffed a small heart in the dummy. Then he played the ace of spades and ruffed small in hand and again ruffed another small heart in the dummy, thus establishing the heart suit. Finally he came back to hand with the remaining trump and drew the trumps held with the opponents and claimed seven diamonds to receive generous applause from the kibidzers, thus also entitled the partnership to a prize for good bidding.

The bidding:

=======================================

East       South       West       North

1 C         1 D        Pass         1 S

Pass        2 H        Pass         2 S

Pass        3 H        Pass        4 NT

Pass        5 H        Pass         6 D

=======================================

Dealer East

Both sides vulnerable

North

S AQJ 843

H 3

D 865

C A106

West

S K752

H Q75

D 1073

C 753

East

S 10

H KJ 2

D 92

C KQJ9842

South

S 109

H A109864

D AKQJ 4

C -

Golden tips: Communicating the shape of the hand is an essential strategy for success in bridge.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2004