Reflections on Ladies National Championships

The Ladies National Championships concluded yesterday. Here are a few observations and thoughts (all my own work).

To be perfectly honest, I would not have written on the topic. One of my friends bemoaned the lack of coverage of this event and she has promised to write about it later. I look forward to her views. However some events that occurred after the conclusion of the event compelled me to share some thoughts.

First of all, let me congratulate the winners, Nikita Kamal and Vasanti Shah. They are arguably two of the best women players we have in the country and often do more than hold their own even in open events. We hope that this pair stabilizes and helps India perform better at the world level.

In second place were Alka Kshirsagar and Bharati Dey followed by Priya Balasubramanian and Bindiya Kohli. We hope to see the third placed pair do even better in forthcoming events.

However, at the completion of the event, Priya and Bindiya were ranked 2nd, ahead of Alka and Bharati by 0.3 VPs. Then, somebody (who chooses to remain anonymous) brought the traveler shown alongside to my notice.

If you read the second score on the traveler, it reads "4 Hearts by North scoring 11 tricks" giving +450 and 14 imps to NS (Priya and Bindiya). Why this phenomenally obvious error was not picked up by the scorer remains a mystery to me.

Nevertheless, I spoke to several of the players including Priya about the error. She was up front about admitting that they defended the hand rather than declared and the entry was obviously incorrect. One could say that East West erred in not checking the result, but Priya asserts that it was corrected in the Bridgemates. However, it remains a fact that neither of the pairs checked their personal score cards at the end of the event as everybody was rushing to catch flights etc. This is something that all pairs need to do diligently, especially in an event of this importance.

Priya, of her own accord spoke to a director and requested the score be changed. The director demurred saying that the correction period was now over and, as such, nothing could be done about it.

Nevertheless, Alka spoke to Mr. Pant who applied Law 79 C 2 which reads "Subject to approval by the Tournament Organizer, a scoring error may be corrected after expiry of the Correction Period if the Director is satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the
record is wrong". Fortunately the change in scores only resulted in the 2nd and 3rd places exchange their spots, else the impact would have been far worse at the top.

Bringing the above proviso to the notice of all players is the main reason for writing this article.

Valentine's Day Special Pairs

We would like to remind readers that BridgeFromHome is conducting a Valentine's Day Special Pairs on Tuesday, 14th February at 6:30 pm. Prizes worth Rs. 10,000 (minimum) are going to be disbursed. However, we would require a minimum participation of 20 pairs. We look forward to your presence in large numbers.