Day 5 at Marrakesh was a good one for the Indian open team, a disastrous one for the seniors, a heartening one for the ladies and a nothing (for want of a better word) day for the seniors.
As we come to the closing stages of the round robin, only the Open team has any serious chances of qualifying. And we pray fervently that they do!
Do follow our mini bulletins. And all contributions are welcome.
The open team had a brilliant day today, winning all their matches. Most importantly they had a big win over a tough team which should make them feel very good about themselves.
Their first match was against Singapore. This was one they were expected to win and they did so comfortably. The only 'bad' board as such in this match was the one below.
Sumeet Mukherji and Rajeshwar Tiwari landed themselves in an un-makeable 6 Hearts and were duly doubled for -100. In the closed room, their opponents bid and made 6 Clubs. To be honest, the line of play is not very clear to me though double dummy, a diamond to the ace followed by a diamond ruff makes 12 tricks a cake walk.
The next match was against South Africa. This team had been performing reasonably and was expected to give India a decent fight. However, India proceeded to win this match comfortably by 26 imps as well (55-29)
Once again, one board from the match caused a mild sense of puzzlement.
With over 27 HCP in the combined hands, Sandeep Thakral and Jaggy Shivdasani lapsed in 3 diamonds rather than finding the comfortable 3 NT. With Jaggy having to have opened the hand, we can only conclude that the partnership got their wires crossed.
Despite these two strong wins, the Indian team was unable to improve its overnight standing and the Indian fans were biting nails as India took on a strong Netherlands team. This match proved to be rather anti climactic as India simply blew away their opponents with a 40 imp win (65-25). In fact, at one stage, it looked like a whitewash except for a mishap on the deal below
Both rooms were sacrificing 5C(X) against a very makeable 4S by NS. In the closed room the Dutch defender unerringly led the Heart Jack after which there was no way the contract could make. In the open room Ajay Khare led a passive trump. Declarer won in hand and played the Diamond King and, in course of time, found a spot to park his losing heart.
As a matter of curiosity, this was not the only 'upset' win in this round. UAE whitewashed Switzerland (66-5) and China almost whitewashed USA2 (67-12). The latter result enabled India to end the day in 5th place, ahead of USA 2
India start their campaign today relatively easily against Morocco. The other two matches, against Israel and USA2 are going to be tough ones requiring them to play out of their skins.
Here's hoping they do!
India's scorecard, as well as their upcoming matches can be seen by clicking here.
The ladies started their day against a strong Canadian team which was simply too good for them and lost that match (11-54). One board (board 3) appears to have been lost because of Vidhya Patel passing a slam going cue, a lapse which cost them 11 imps. Another board, which was a wild, swingy one, cost them 17 imps. We are reproducing the board below, not to find fault, but to show the need to learn how to evaluate and handle such situations.
In the Open Room, Kalpana Gurjar and Vidhya Patel elected to double 5S. While this goes down in a double dummy defence, it was not found at the table and Canada got +650. In the closed room, the Canadian pair bid up to 6 Diamonds which was inexplicably doubled by Alka Kshirsagar and Bharati Dey. Given the wild distributions going around, there was no reason to be confident of gaining 2 tricks in defence.
Their second match was against Denmark, another decent team. The team played really well but lost this match by (27-34) when the normally aggressive Asha Sharma and Puja Batra failed to bid this cold slam below.
We agree that it is difficult to bid the slam, but their opponents did and it cost them.
In their final match, India played a much weaker Chinese Taipei team and won the match in style by 59 imps to 19.
Notwithstanding these two boards, the Indian team managed to square the match (34-34).
At this stage, in 14th position and 30 VPs adrift of the qualifying cutoff, there do not appear to be any realistic chances of qualification.
However, we can always pray for miracles!
Todays matches are all going to be tough versus South Africa, USA1 and Sweden. We wish them all the best.
India's scorecard, as well as their upcoming matches can be seen by clicking here.
The Indian Seniors had a disastrous day yesterday seeing them unwind all the good work done on the previous day.
They started against a much lower placed China who did not allow them to gain anything significant, losing by 18 imps to 37.
Their next match was against a much stronger Israeli team and they did well to lose the match by just 2 imps (43-45)
Their last match was against Reunion, one of the lower ranked teams in the event. But this session was one of upsets and India was at the wrong end of the upsets in this category and they lost by 32 imps to 60 to end the day in 17th position.
It would seem that they would be playing mainly for pride over the next two days. They start the day against USA1 and then face Argentina and Norway. We wish them all the best.
We wish them all the best for a critical day today!
India's scorecard, as well as their upcoming matches can be seen by clicking here.
The Indian started the day well beating a weak Moroccan team by 64 imps to 19. However, they lost the next two matches to Argentina (30-49) and USA 2 (27-42) to stay 15th at the end of the day.
Today they play USA 1, France and Columbia.
We wish them all the best for a good showing.
India's scorecard, as well as their upcoming matches can be seen by clicking here.
Disclaimer : All opinions are entirely those of the author and are no reflection of the views of the BridgeFromHome Team.
Sukrit, they are 5th about to qualify please make this more optimistic, our team is the best 🙂
I think it is unfair to write partnership got wires crossed while the tournament is going on and why report only deals that we didn’t do well in.
Please report the hands where they did so remarkably well. I think we should encourage teams while they are there.
Let’s cheer for them like we did for ISRO, their minds and our prayers will make the difference. Best of luck to the team. Jai Hind
Dear Priyanka,
Thanks for writing in. I took the trouble to parse and punctuate your paragraph. Hope it is okay.
First of all, let me hasten to say that I have consistently been cheering all the teams whole heartedly.
To give you, and others about how this column is constructed, I am basically looking at the scoresheets and commenting on things I consider interesting. As the Indian team is doing rather well, I tend to look at what went wrong. Almost all the deals which I have reported are issues which can be tackled in many different ways at the table and, except for a couple of boards, I have never even stated that our team made a ‘mistake’. Rather it is more to lament on the luck of the draw that things failed to go our way inspite of taking reasonable decisions.
I have been instructed to report good deals. I am happy to do so if somebody brings them to my notice. I exhort all readers to report such boards as and when they they see them.
Trust that clarifies
Sadly, it’s easy to write whatever occurs to one, hard to analyze. And that too with the benefit of being able to see 52 cards.
Dear Sandeep,
Thanks for writing in. I do acknowledge that even if I spent all my time doing nothing other than bridge, I would never achieve the level of excellence that any of the team members have. Hence, I refrain from criticising any actions taken by any member of the team.
Let me assure you that I am following the scores of each match eagerly even though I lack the time to watch any of them on BBO. And my heart beats for India as strongly as any of our fellow countrymen.
There is no argument I can enter with you right now which I would win.
Hence, all I can say here is “Please go out and bring back the BB!”