This type of tournament is popular in Britain, France, Italy and Holland. Both these developments would certainly contribute to the good of this enviable sport of intellectual skill in the country.
The Karachi Cup Bridge is sponsored by Khursheed Hadi, and conducted jointly by Pakistan Bridge Federation and Karachi Bridge Association. The sponsor offers a prize of Rs 100000 to the winning team.
The format of the tournament, which is stretched over six months, to be played on the league basis among four groups of 8 teams each to determine the winner at the final stage.
The initial matches started in the middle of May, but the progress of matches has been slow and unsteady. Because of the schedule of match has been left to the convenience of time and place of each competing team. In that process there have been inordinate delays in the fixtures.
Some of the teams have not yet played even the first round of matches, which is likely to cause delay in quarterfinal and semi-final rounds. Even Karachi Gymkhana that has entered four teams, only one of them has played the first round.
Whichever teams have played the initial rounds have shown keen contest to gain enough points to enter the quarterfinal stage. However Karachi Gymkhana team in its first round playing against Syed IV exhibited good form and playing technique.
A deal of interest in double dummy technique is reproduced here in which Karachi Gymkhana pair of Ghaffar Qureshi and Naseem Arzoo bid and made a little slam in clubs against the pair of Syed Ameer Hasan and Tariq Zafar of Syed IV.
(1) Two-way stayman for game force.
(2) Inquiry for four cards suit in minor.
East led spade 5:
When the dummy came down Naseem Arzoo (the declarer) appeared fully satisfied for reaching a little slam in clubs. But with the lead of spade 5 he was apprehensive that it could be a singleton in that case he had two losers one in spades another in hearts. So he had to eliminate one loser to make the contract.
He thoughtfully proceeded to win the first trick with the king of spade in dummy and played three rounds of trump ending in dummy with jack. Then played back the queen of spade and he was so true that East had led the singleton. At this point he played the ace of diamond ruff small in hand and played the ace of spades on which the East discarded another diamond and West discarded a spade. Now the stage was set to play the last trump to apply double squeeze.
When he played the last trump the East was in a fix with no safe discard. If he discarded a heart the jack will drop under ace and king and if he discarded another diamond the queen and a card will win the 12th trick. So also the West was in dilemma for discard. If he discarded spade then the declarer last spade will be a master card and if he discarded a heart there was no hope, but he had to discard a heart.
These discard from the East and West gave the declarer of sigh of relief and ultimately he made a 12th trick in heart to make a slam which the opponent in the close room did not even bid and made five clubs only thereby the Karachi Gymkhana scored a big swing over Syed IV on this deal.
Golden Tips: The key to execute any type of squeeze needs a very watchful count of discard by the both the defender.
Dealer South
Both side vulnerable
North
S A743
H A97
D 3
C AKQ109
West
S J10982
H Q62
D K7
C 763
East
S 5
H J854
D J109852
C 52
South
S KQ6
H K103
D AQ64
C J84
The bidding:
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South West North East
1NT Pass 2D(1) Pass
2NT Pass 3C(2) Pass
3D Pass 4NT Pass
5D Pass 6C Pass
Pass Pass
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