The 45th Winter Bridge National (earlier popularly known as Indian Bridge National), the prime bridge event in the country, was held in Aurangabad on 3-13 January 2004. This crowing bridge event was sponsored by Akai and jointly organised by Maharashtra Bridge Association and Aurangabad Contract Bridge League under the auspices of Bridge Federation of India and was a superbly staged bridge tournament from start to finish.

After a marathon session stretched over ten days, marked with keen contest among over one thousand participating teams, the Indian Railways 'A' comprising two players of Indian national bridge team emerged the winners finally.

Honey Prabhakar of Indian Railways, a celebrated bridge player, known for his brilliance and technique in bidding as well as play, was of special interest to kibitzers to watch him. In one of the hands in the final segment of the game, he reached a contract of three No Trumps after only two bids between the partnership, which was considered a bit too high. But his partner sitting north was fairly justified to raise the bid of one No Trump to three No Trumps with his holding of twelve count with a balanced hand. However, Prabhakar managed to successfully execute the contract using his expertise at the game. The complete deal is as follows:

West led heart 3

When the dummy came the declarer found out that there was a difficult chance of making the game. But he did not lose hope thinking if the card held by the opponents as he imagined to be with them then there was a possibility of success of the contract. Luckily he found the favourable distribution as he thought and made the contract with his skilful play.

The lead was won by East with the ace and returned small Heart, South allowed the West to win with the jack. South won the third round Heart with the king East discarded a small Diamond. Now the only chance of making the contract was if East also held doubleton A-10 or A-J of Spades, so he crossed to the dummy with a low Club and played back a small Spade, 5 of the suit appeared from the East, so he played the king which held. But the expected card did not appear so he applied ingenious move by reaching the dummy again with another small club and led back another small Spade to give an impression to the opponent that he held the jack of the suit also. The East was goaded into playing the ace of Spades. At this move he made a key play of discarding 9 instead of 3 and with the distribution of Spades 3 cards of Spades with the East that dropped the 10 of Spades from the West and the game was almost half won.

At this point the East played the jack of Diamonds which was covered by queen and West played the king that was won in the dummy by the ace and then another two Club tricks were cashed.

Prabhakar drove the final nail in the coffin of the defenders by end playing the East with Diamond with no Diamond to play. So he was obliged to play Spade into Q8 in the dummy. Thus a difficult contract was brought home by Prabhakar for a substantial score for the Indian Railway 'A' team.

Dealer South

Both-South vulnerable

The bidding:

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South       West     North       East

Prabhakar    -        Rana          -

1No trump   Pass    3No trumps   Pass

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NORTH

S Q 842

H 1084

D A9

C KQJ7

WEST

S J107

H QJ632

D K6

C 1098

EAST

S A65

H A9

D JI08543

C 52

SOUTH

S K93

H K75

D Q72

C A643

GOLDEN TIPS: Ingenious approach is not a common trait. It has to be developed.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2004