The Dev Diwali Mixed Pairs Swiss Tournament saw a total of 33 participants battle over 9 rounds of Swiss Pairs. To be honest, the organizers were hoping for more participants, but the numbers seem to have been subdued.
Kista and Bharati, as has been their wont, stamped their authority over the mixed pairs genre winning yet another event of this genre this year. In second place was a new pair of Animesh Raj and Richa Shriram. The third place was clinched by Rajeev and Himani Khandelwal notwithstanding a disastrous start to their campaign. Almost all the pairs in the top 8 had, at one point or the other threatened to take the lead away from the winners, but they played steady, consistent bridge to emerge winners with almost a round to spare.
The results of yesterday's game can be seen here.
Interesting Hand
Ze Ying Lam, sitting South, propelled her partner into this rather agressive game.
South led the Ace and King of Diamonds which declarer ruffed and pondered his further course of action. In his own words
"I knew that the diamonds were 6-4. I also knew that the Spade Ace and King could not both be onside. So my only chance was to find East with a 2-2-6-3 distribution and play for a partial elimination"
Accordingly, he proceeded to draw 2 rounds of trumps with the King and Queen of Hearts and three rounds of clubs and played the 7 of spades from Dummy and, when East played low, let it ride. East could now cash two spades but was then forced to play a diamond.
Note that, as the cards lie, the defence can do nothing even if West puts up the Jack of Spades. With the pips being as they are, whether North covers the Jack with the queen or not, either East gets end played, or North ends up with a spade winner. The only hope for the defence was for West to take a clue from the DQ played by Arun Jain at trick one and shift to a spade.
Beautifully played hand! You can watch card by card play here
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Beautiful card play