19-May-21
Winners: Sapna & Nalini
07-Apr-21
Joint Winners: Suresh Gummalam - Anand Joint Winners: Kumkum Sen - Rekha Krishan
Winners: Kumkum Sen - Rekha Krishan
Winners: Mahima Mathur - Anjali
17-Feb-21
Winners: Gunjan and Shamla
Gunjan and Shamla win our weekly game for the second week in a row. Let's find out next week if they can go for three.
Gunjan (and Ashok Sen similarly) made a well-evaluated decision to move towards slam over partner's 2NT opening. Once key cards are confirmed, the slam will be a good one more often than not. With partner having all the right cards - ♠Q, ♣Q, and a doubleton diamond, 6♠ was laydown.
03-Feb-21
Winners: Ashok Sen and Ruchi
This week's champions began the match by being the only pair to play 3NT on the North-South cards. They may have only 23 HCP, but HCP does not account for the heavy lifting performed by 10s and 9s.
East led the heart king and continued with the heart queen when declarer ducked. Winning the ace, declarer cashed the club king and finessed the club ten. When that won, declarer finessed against the king-queen of spades and eventually scored nine tricks.
Although 3NT required a bit fortune's favour, our bold winners were rewarded with a top on the board.
20-Jan-21
The results with the winners below
Today's event was won by our guests / hosts... Actually we don't quite know what to call them since Stanley is a member of the organizing team. He very graciously called somebody to play with him to ensure that nobody has a bye. And then the two of them decided to teach us a bridge lesson or 3!
Given that they scored 100% in 9 out of 12 deals, we would do well to examine all the deals to figure out what they did right or where we went wrong!
13-Jan-21
The result and the winners below
Yesterday's game featured a close fight for the top place between frequent winners Avinash and Avakash and coach Gunjan and Sapna
The champions started disastrously, scoring a mere 10% on Board 1. However, subsequently they pulled up their socks and pulled off one top after another. Notwithstanding the impressive string of tops, they were still second at the start of the last round. Unfortunately, a bad miscalculation by Gunjan cost them the top spot.
At this stage all the tricks belonged to East West and ducking the spade queen was a very expensive gift by Gunjan to her father.
Had she chosen to win the spade king and back any other suit, East-West would have won the remaining tricks and scored 5 match points on the board thereby tying them for the first place
The value of an over trick in a match points event can rarely be presented so starkly.
We normally do not write about mistakes when talking about hands but, since Gunjan is our teacher, I am sure she won't mind driving home the lesson to all of you.
See you all next Wednesday.
09-Dec-20
The results and the winners below
Well done Gunjan and Sulo.
On the next day, we had a lovely discussion about the hands we played during the event. Aniruddha has graciously agreed to take us through a session where he will cover the topic of 'Doubles', where he will cover the different types of doubles, so to speak, when they are to be used, and their benefits and limitations.
02-Dec-20
The results and the winners below
Anurag and Avakash celebrate after successfully defending their title
Commentary from Gunjan after the game.
Truth be told, I was pegging for Shamla and Rita to take the top spot this time 😍
Not in any way to stop the winning streak of my favourite students and dear friends, Avakash and Anurag; this time being their hat-trick....but just to get some different mug shots on our website!!!
Rather than concentrating on my own game (sorry partner)....it being an almost impossible climb from almost bottom to the top, I was keenly following the top two spots through the evening.
It came down to the wire.. where the ladies were just a couple of MPs below the defending champions.
Last game: Our opponents, in a brilliant call of 6H made by Ruchi holding a four carder heart to her partner’s 1H opening bid and 17 points; and played successfully by my dad, finishing off with an extra trick saw us tumble to the bottom of the pile!!!
That didn’t matter....the only hope was that either Rita and Shamla bid and make the 6H contract while Avakash and Anurag keep it at 4H; or that Rita and Shaila’s opponents don’t bid a slam while A&A’s opponents do.
But then bridge is as much a game of luck as it is of skill!
Rita and Shamla faced my mother partnering my grandmother, who in their true “Jo dar gaya so mar gaya” went on and bid 7H and made it with ease.
Anand and Anurag, with the Lady Luck shining on them, faced Anand and Suresh; the two conservative bankers who took stock of the situation and settled for a guaranteed 3NT contract rather than a riskier slam option and finished the round with two extra tricks.
Inadvertently creating a huge chasm between the first two spots ...
It was Rita and Shamla’s bad luck that they faced who they faced in their last game 🙂
While I was looking at the top two pairs; the podium finishes were infact decided by my parents - one who raised the bar by biddng a slam and taking the MPs to their peak and then the other who, like always (seen every time in their 50 years of married life) had her final say, to outbid my dad and make a grand slam 😍😍
Heartiest congratulations Avakash and Anurag!!
And brilliantly defended Rita and Shamla.
At least, till the last game!!
19-Nov-20
Live Bridge at Kalture Restaurant
We had a small, 2 table event at the Kalture restaurant last week.
It was a great event. The restaurant is open and airy and no one else was there apart from the 8 of us and a couple of waiters and the owner 😉. Everyone was masked and we had a smooth game. This was our second week playing there.
We were 8 people playing at 2 tables including the two TD’s. Gunjan was there and so were Ujjwala and Priya.
The joint winners were Pak Dadang/Pak Rilla and Nazneen/Rita.
We hope to make it a weekly program and invite all of you to join next week.
