Apart from American and European, the people from other continents also whole-heartedly share the pleasure of this challenging and at the same time entertaining world bridge event. The bridge-playing nations of India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, have remained active participants in this bridge event ever since its inception in 1986. This year also like earlier Pakistani players, on the whole, recorded good score as compared to the players of neighbouring countries of this sub-continent.
By holding this annual worldwide bridge movement the idea of World Bridge Federation has been well served in promoting the game internationally. For this particular tournament the prepared deals are distributed with identical set of cards for specified number of boards all over the world. The score is allotted to the side according to its performance, which is already pre-determined. A pair, which is nearer the benchmark of points, is likely to score higher than others.
Among the centres of the tournament in Lahore, Islamabad and Karachi, the Karachi centre was very well represented at two places in the city. In course of the tournament, which lasted only one session, there have been many interesting and challenging hands that required good technical skill to handle them to ensure optimum result.
A hand was played at the Aslam Bridge Hall, at Karachi National Stadium, between the pairs of Rasheed Jaffer-Sarfraz Khan and Saeed Ansari-Tariq Rasheed--all the players of good standing. The bidding sequence in order to convey the picture of this hand called for a clairvoyant vision and in fact both the pairs exhausted their utmost gallantry in bidding beyond which the punishment was in store.
The complete hand with bidding is as under:-
East led Diamond 10
Looking at the bidding, it appeared as though the players were under either trance or some sort of compulsion to offer a bid. The takeout double by South after first passing, gave an impression of a lighthearted balancing double without logistic support. But the North, however, having much more than the required high card points and five card major suit bid a game in spades without hesitation. Despite, the meagre holding in South's hand, there was a successful contract in sight provided the hand is tactfully played.
On the lead the South won the Ace of Diamond in hand and immediately played a small trump toward the dummy and after a moment's thought, he inserted the Ace of Spade, dropping the singleton King of Spade from West. He then played the Queen of Spades also and next he played the Heart suit from dummy. After cashing King and Queen of Hearts, the North played seven of Heart towards the dummy's Jack, which was won by East with the Ace and he played back a Diamond, which was ruffed in the dummy and the dummy played back a Jack of Heart continued with nine of Heart on which the North discarded two small Clubs.
Thus, the North made a lucky contract through highly imaginative bidding by North South partnership. With this very positive score the North-South partnership moved ahead in the scale of matchpoint for that particular round number 18.
The bidding:
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South West North East
Saeed Rasheed Tariq Sarfraz
Ansari Jaffer Rasheed Khan
Pass
Pass 3D Pass 4D
Dbl Pass 4S Pass
Pass Pass
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Dealer East
North -South vulnerable
NORTH
S 108652
H KQ7
D A6
C A92
WEST
S K
H 103
D KQJ432
C KJ85
EAST
S J97
H A86
D 10987
C 764
SOUTH
S AQ43
H J9542
D 5
C Q103
GOLDEN TIP
The prepared deals are hot potatoes, handle them carefully.