The fourth Tuesday of the month is a busy day for Karachi Golf Club as the monthly invitational bridge pair event is held at the club. The bridge pair event provides an indoor sporting activity for the club members as well as the invitee pairs. This way the club has been taking interest in promoting bridge along with Karachi Gymkhana and Karachi Club and not to speak of Karachi Bridge Association. But it has been observed that new faces at the game are not to be seen and the participating pairs have also been on the decline at the competition event.

The pair event held last month attracted only twelve pairs. But one could feel that congeniality and the friendliness dominated the day's proceedings.

The competition showed a tension-free and causal atmosphere right from the beginning till the end.

However, some of the leading pairs from Karachi Gymkhana, Karachi Club and Karachi Bridge Association took part in the contest. The bridge committee of the club is making efforts to invite more pairs including young bridge talent to participate in the events. It has to be seen how far its efforts would bear fruit. In fact, the new generation has to be inducted in to the intellectual game of bridge before long for improving the standard of the game as well as the participation in competitive bridge.

The proceedings of the tournament presented a subdued tone with less of spectacle in bidding and play except two or three pairs showed skilful handling in all departments of the game. In the end, the blossoming and maturing pair of Hamid Mohiuddin and Zia Ullah Baig performed well to deserve the top slot in the tournament that day.

The deals, which fell to the share, did not pose any difficulty in tackling as almost all hands were of average type. In one of the deals when the pair showed good partnership understanding in defending in three no trump contract which was defeated by two tricks in a move entirely based on the understanding. Besides, the contract of three no trump played by the declarer was a bit too ambitious, as the type and strength of the hand by the declarer did not merit a game contract. But the chronic optimism always comes into play on the principle of hoping against hope.

The complete hand and the bidding were as under.

East led Diamond six Dummy played small West discarded four of Spades and North with the Diamond ten. Here Zia indicated Interest in Club suit, which was the key discard by Zia. The declarer realized that he was in a contract with no hope and promise. On winning the first trick he cashed ace of Spades and small. East won the trick with the King and shifted to small Club, on which the West played eight of clubs that was won with the King of Clubs by the declarer. And he cashed two more Spades and played back a small Heart to the Ace and returned a small Heart from the Dummy and placed the Queen which was won by the East with the King and Hamid played the Queen of clubs and followed by small thus the defender won four tricks in Clubs, two tricks in Heart, one trick in Diamond and one trick in Spades, thus the contract went down by four tricks.

This was a good defence by the East West and disastrous result for the declarer, which gave a very big swing to the East West.

The bidding:

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

North    East    South    West

         Hamid             Zia

1 NT     Pass    2 NT     Pass

3 NT     Pass    Pass     Pass

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

Dealer North:

No side vulnerable

NORTH

S AJ63

H Q54

D AQ103

C K2

WEST

S 7654

H J923

D ---

C A10986

EAST

S K2

H K94

D K9834

C Q26

SOUTH

S Q56

H A103

D J987

C J34

GOLDEN TIP: Careless bidding invariably lands the side in a terrible mess.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2004