From Trough to Crest

This is a small account of the journey of my partner, Mridul Das, and myself as we played through the Upasana Jajoo pairs event which we miraculously happened to win.

Sukrit really pushed me to write this; nagging me with the ease of a grandmother so, in case you think I am boasting, please do take him to task! 😜

On a more serious note, it was fun reliving the event as it happened. I hope all of you enjoying reading about my journey. For other newcomers to bridge, this should serve as a reminder that this could happen to you as well should the stars align right and you play your cards well.

26th December, 2021 was a wash out day for my partner Mridul and myself - we had ranked in the bottom of the Smt. Vijya Jajoo Mixed pair tournament. It was very depressing and disheartening, but we still decided to play the Smt. Upasana Jajoo IMP pairs the next day.

We went through our boards and discussed the mistakes we (me more than him!) had made. "Don't get hassled, take your time before you play any card or make a bid" were Mridul's instructions to me. We also decided that we will get our basics right and wait for the opponents to buckle. This eventually would turn out to be critical factors in our win on the 27th of December, 2021.

For us the journey started almost with a bang as our opponents doubled us in 3 Diamonds on the very 2nd Board. After 1D-1NT, 2 Clubs was natural. West passed my 2 diamonds but doubled my partner's 3 Diamonds. In retrospect, it must have been what is called a responsive double asking partner to decide. She decided to leave it in and we were gifted 12 imps. The moral of the story is that we all need gifts to go to the top. We were lucky to have received one so early. Later one, we would receive a few more (boards 22, 26, 35 and 36 to name a few) all of which helped us notch our victory.

On Board 7, we were the only pair to play in 3NT after showing a clear spade fit. Partner's 3 Heart was a good raise in Spades.  I signed off in 3S showing a minimum. Partner made an inspired bid of 3NT since he had values in all the other suits (is there a moral in this somewhere?). Mridul played it like a pro making 3 over-tricks. Of all the North-South pairs who bid, we made the highest score. Two pairs went down playing 4S.

Board 37, we bid correctly to show club fit and hearts control making it difficult for the opponents to bid game at 3NT.

Another board where it was very tempting to bid 5S (we had 11 cards of spades between us) was board 38. However, we realized our bid was a weak bid and we passed the opponents 5D game bid. Here, we took our time to think even before passing. We earned a cool 6.67 imps on that board.

Our card play and defense through all boards remained mostly steady - I do not think we made any major goof-ups that could drastically tilt the games in favor of our opponents. We did have the odd hiccup here and there though.
And yes, we did have a great understanding as a partnership. We managed to shrug off  the disappointment of the previous day and rise like a phoenix from the ashes for this event!

Did I think we would win against such big names in Bridge? Probably not. But I knew that we would definitely put up a strong fight. In order to improve my focus, I consciously avoided looking at the score at the end of each round. It was only in the last round when Girish Bijoor told us that we had almost certainly won the event that I had any inkling of how well we had done. Nevertheless, I resolutely put my head down for the last round as well and did well in that round too!

In cricketing terms, we were the underdogs and I would call our performance as something akin to Rahul Dravid's batting - humble, consistent and solid - Nothing Fancy. We were at it from the 1st board till the last. Hopefully we can persevere and continue the same in the tournaments to come!