The Newly Selected Indian Womens Team

After a double round robin featuring the top nine ranked pairs in the country, the following three pairs emerged on top.

1. Puja Batra and Asha Sharma
2. Bharti Dey and Alka Kshirsagar
3. Devi Bhatnagar and Alka Jain

Puja and Asha were clearly streets ahead of the rest of the competition finishing more than one match ahead of the second placed team. While they did enjoy a very good carry over, they topped the double round robin 8 VPs ahead of anybody else.

Devi and Alka Jain too held on to second place for most of the time, faltering only in the last 3 rounds to slip down to third place.

Bharati and Alka Kshirsagar also were in third place most of the time, occasionally slipping to 4th place and finally overtaking Devi and Alka Jain.
Mini Naidoo and Aparna (Pinky) Sain emerged as the reserve pair

The details of the standings, along with round by round results and deal records can be seen here.

I am sharing a few observations and suggestions below for whatever they are worth.

Observations

1. Apart from the top three pairs, there really didn't appear to be much of a chance for any of the rest to actually claim any of the top three spots. I doubt that after the first few rounds, there was more than one round, at the end of which anybody else occupied the third spot.

   This shows the dearth of bench strength for Indian women's bridge. That the fourth pair was a totally scratch combination, neither of which played the other's system before the selection trials is also a revelation in itself

2. The performance of Anjali Karthikeyan and Ritu Bagaria has been extremely heartening. There were times when they appeared to be in with a chance too qualify, particularly in the early stages, but they fizzled out in the middle.
3. The performance of Kalpana Gurjar and Vidhya Patel seemed to be extremely disappointing. Not only did they not look like qualifying any time, but they also spent a couple of rounds languishing near the bottom. Either their standards have slipped, or the standards of the other pairs appear to have improved dramatically.

   Given that none of the top 3 pairs have been playing throughout the year for as a pair for various reasons and the reserve pair having never played together before, I don't believe that our standards have improved dramatically.

Suggestions

Going forward, I have the following suggestions for the Indian mixed team. Once again, while it sounds pretentious, my only contention is that these suggestions are generic and have little to do with specific bridge skills where I am a relative nobody.

1. Physical fitness
   All events are extremely draining physically. Hence improvement in physical fitness (or maintenance thereof) is a made a mandatory part of their preparations for the championships
2. Coaching
   This point was made to me by somebody among the top contenders for qualification. Hence I believe it carries weight.The coach should study the strengths and weaknesses of each pair in various aspects of the game (e.g. slam bidding, competing in high level pre-empt situations) and suggest methods of bolstering their tactics / techniques in such situations.

   Indeed, if the pairs are aware of areas where they would like such focus, they may suggest the same to their coach.

3. Playing together in open events
   This one is quite feasible for this team which has very few commitments elsewhere. Further, none of the individuals in question, to the best of my knowledge, are in any requirement of financial support to participate in these events.
   I hope we can see this team participate in the nationals and all other tournaments.
4. Temperament
   Quite a few of us tend to choke when playing against 'legendary' opponents. Some work needs to be done with some members of the team to take care of this aspect of their game.

In Conclusion

I will conclude by once again congratulating the successful pairs and wishing them all the best in their preparations and performances in international events this year. May they go from strength to strength

Disclaimer : All opinions are entirely those of the author and are no reflection of the views of the BridgeFromHome Team.