The finals of the UNN Rao Memorial Bridge Tournament got under way today. 32 Pairs contested in the the Gold Section while 85 pairs contested in the Silver Section.
Gold Section
Swapan Some and Sankar Narayan Ghose were the winners of yesterday's session with 60.64 Imps, way ahead of Ajay Khare and Raju Tolani in second place with 39.85. The results of yesterday's game can be seen here.
In terms of VPs, along with carry over, Sukanta Das and Vaskar Sarkar pipped the runners up to second place. The score in VPs can be seen here
Silver Section
Subhrajit Mukhopadhyay and Arpan Banerjee won yesterday's session with 55.78 Imps. In second place were Rajeev S and Saheeruddin with 52.74 Imps. The results of yesterday's game can be seen here.
The VP scores also show the same pairs in the top three places (Veterans Archie Sequeira and Finton Lewis taking third place). The combined results can be seen here
Special Prizes
The finals, finally saw the first claimants for special prizes. Yesterday's prize was for three consecutive scores of +300 or more. In the Gold Section, Prakash Easwaran and Nilesh Mitra secured scores on boards 8,9 and 10. In the Silver Section, Dr. Nikita Kamal and A.K. Sinha secured scores of boards 6,7 and 8.
Greenhorn Prizes
With the BFI website down, it is not possible to verify the Greenhorn prizes. While Subhrajit and Arpan have been winners before, they have already won the session prize.
Request pairs with less than 100 Master Points to present their claim to me.
Interesting Hand
A wildly distributed hand, with directional vulnerability, brings all kinds of possible results into play.
As the cards lie, EW have a cold little slam in clubs against which 6S is a brilliant sacrifice.As Kista, our expert says:
This is an action hand in which each side wants to play their suit; EW as high as 6C / 6D and NS as high as 6S.
The objective on a distributional hand changes with the vulnerability mix, for which a good strategy is required. I refrained from overcalling 3 Clubs for fear of galvanizing the auction and propelling NS into the save.
At some tables N doubled to show 1 defensive trick while S thought there was another.
One table saw a tragicomic auction and play. South's double was a lightner double asking for an 'unusual' lead which North, for some reason ignored and led a spade after which 13 tricks were unstoppable.
It should not have been difficult for Koushik to guess that East had a club suit based on the bidding. The failure of partner to bid 5H should have also provided a clue. A club lead sets the contract down 2. Even the lead of the HA would have helped set it down 1
Today's session begins at 630 as usual. Please do make it a point to be seated in good time.
South might have been expecting Opponents to play in H and was perhaps ready to defend it. He could have improvised by bidding 4C over 2 S Opening bid… Now the lighter double would have left no doubt as to what to lead.