The 18th Yeshwant Rao Holkar Championships concluded yesterday. Here are a few observations and thoughts (all my own work).
As has now become usual, there are no comments to be made on the organization of the event itself. Managing events on this scale is tough and the organising team did a great job to run it without any hiccups.
As a first observation, 53 teams participated in the main event. This is not much different from the participation at the Winter Nationals. The trend of declining participation seems, alas, to be continuing.
Secondly we observed only 4 directors, Ranju Bhattacharya, Gora Roychowdhury, P. Narsingha Rao and Avinash Chitale. The low director to participants ratio must have made it a severely taxing job for them. It is patently obvious that several directors (yours truly included) declined to participate for various personal reasons. It would seem to me that something needs to be done to make the directors want to direct for more reasons other than the pure love of bridge. (This is not meant to be a critical post so I will stop here). The shortage notwithstanding, they did a great job of conducting all the events.
The most remarkable performance, by several miles was that of Team Amanora, who emerged runners up in the event. Not many people outside the state of Maharashtra would have heard the name (though 2 of the members of this team were part of a team that won the Silver event at the Pune Nationals in 2019).
Among the first teams to be snapped up at the time of choosing, they first beat an experienced Delhi Blues team 47-38. Their quarter final match was against another upset winner, Team Vibrant, who beat a star studded Fenesta 63-61. This match they won comfortably (59-26) setting up a semi final match with the team to beat in the last few months, Dhampur Sugar Mills.
They lost the first 2 sessions 4-12 and 8-26 respectively. They pulled back 2 imps in the third and, in an unbelievable 4th set, scored 41 imps to their opponents 15 to win by 2 imps! To call this win an upset is an understatement.
While they finally met their match in the finals, where they were roundly thrashed, they can be justifiably proud of their performance.
Mention must also be made of the team who finished 4th, Jareja. A four member team (Janak Shah, Jayendu Shah, Finton Lewis and Ivan Alphonso) their turned in an awesome performance. The eventual winners, Formidables, barely managed to eke out a win on the penultimate board of their semi final event.
In the pairs event, the seasoned combination of Ajay Khare and Raju Tolani just failed to qualify because of this deal alongside which, for them, was the last board of the eliminations.
At several tables, the bidding went
West North East South
P 1C P 1H
P 2C P 6NT!
Not very scientific, but NS were quite happy with the little slam notwithstanding the 13 tricks available for the asking.
Unfortunately for Raju and Ajay, their opponents were also determined to finish with a bang and they bid the grand slam and scored 12 imps off their opponents. This loss managed to pip Ajay and Raju out of the qualifiers list. A Rueful Raju very graciously commented "Never mind. If we got out of the finals because of this board, it is at least because somebody did something excellent"!
A third good thing according to me was something that happened to me personally. I am deliberately not giving details because they are not germane to the point I want to make. At a table, I called the director to protest about a result. The directors modified the result in our favor. The opposing pair requested for a review of the result which was again amended in their favor. When I was shown the reviewer's reason for reversing the TD ruling, I appealed to the tournament committee protesting against the grounds for reversing the result. The tournament committee took cognizance of my appeal, met the next day and ensured that the proper procedure was followed. I was extremely pleased with the alacrity with which the tournament committee took cognizance of my appeal and I would like to commend them all for doing so!
Willingdon Sports Club Annual Swiss Pairs
The next major physical event is the The Willingdon Sports Club Annual Bridge Tournament in Mumbai. With close to 100 entries for the event, the organizers have not only increased the amount of prize money, but have also created 3 sections in place of the two earlier thus making it possible for more prizes and prize winners.
We hope to see a lot of you in Mumbai.