The KBA Open Bridge Championship kicked off today in the idyllic backdrop of a sea shore. 23 teams participated. For me, the most endearing part was a team called Puducherry Boys, featuring a pair of kids Roshan (8 years old) and Krishan (11 years old). In the first round they were facing off against a pair of Holkar champions, Cool Vijay and Raghu Rajkumar.
I checked later with this pair about how the kids were playing. They felt that they certainly knew how to hold their cards, but they would be in need (naturally) of a lot of training and nurturing.
This is a general appeal to the experts and training public to help these youngsters. If you connect with me, I will connect you to the kids one way or the other.
The event was inaugurated by Ms. Marian Mammen, CEO of Manorama Online. Since she has grown up in a bridge family and is also is learning to play bridge, I would seriously recommend cultivating her to help us get a connect to the media at large.
We present below the inauguration ceremony
Ms Mammen was presented a book on Bridge by young Roshan, a fitting welcome for this youngster. In her speech, she referred to her long association with bridge and hoped it continued. Let us take her up on her word!
Post the inauguration, all the participants start playing the event with great zest and gusto. Here is a small coverage of the goings on.
Swiss League
After 6 rounds of 10 boards each, the following teams qualified for the super league. The 6 teams will be playing on a house boat which, I can share with you, is a fun experience.
Coolers : S Vijayraghavan, P Sridharan, Afshar Majeed, R Raghavendra, Uma Rajesh Crazy 6: Arun Bapat, Biswajit Poddar, Binod Shaw, Sanjit Dey, Soham Sarkar, Mathew Chandy Papai's IV : Saswata Bhattacharya, Ranjan Banerjee, Abhijit Dutta, Pranay Majumder Alpha One: Sudhakar Babu, Selvarajan S C, K Sridhar, Kuria Kose Deepaadhar: Deepa Jacob, Prosenjit Manna, Babhrubahan Bose, Pradip Dey, Sukrit Vijayakar Peri: N Periasamy, R Sreekrishnan, Kumar Venkatraman, MJR Vasudevan
These six teams were miles ahead of the rest of the field. The complete scores can be seen here
The qualified teams play a super league with the following carry overs.
We present below a few photographs of the boating experience
The boat Players on the DeckDirector, Ashok GirdharCool Vijay
Match Point Pairs
The Match Point Pairs is underway at the main venue. 39 pairs will be participating in the first elimination in the morning.
The qualifiers will be playing Elimination 2 while the non qualifiers will be playing a consolation event.