My First Bridge Nationals

Priyanka Gulati

Some of you may have already seen some of the thoughts that I have penned down. Since I have always been encouraged to do so by all my well wishers, here is another set of thoughts that flowed through my head as I played my first National Championships. I had an absolute roller-coaster ride of emotions participating in the event.

It would do well for all of you, gentle readers, to remember that I started learning bridge during the pandemic shut down. This means that, until this event, I had never held playing cards in my hand. Therefore, the thought of participating in these championships was quite daunting for me. I must give due credit to my first guru Sunil Varghese, who runs Master Mind Bridge and his wife Srihari for forming a team with four rank beginners.

The team comprised of captain Sunil Varghese, Srihari, Santosh,Priyanka, Jyotsna and Shaun. A well balanced team of different age groups, sex and experience. The young pair Jyotsna and Shaun revealed courage, discipline, determination and ruthlessness expected from senior experienced players, during their games. I do believe that were it not for their having taken an interest in forming this team, we may never have participated.

Our team name was Jack n Jill. And I don't know about the Jacks in the team, but this Jill came close to breaking her crown quite often. The first few deals were not very happy to be honest. Apart from struggling to count and arrange the cards, a given on online events, the heart thumping and the sweating hands gave me a lot to worry about. We were not aided by senior, more experienced players trying to intimidate us as they spotted 'easy meat'.

The first contract that I got to play was a 3NT game where I managed to make 9 tricks. I was initially thrilled to bits, but that dissipated quickly when I saw that the result was duplicated at the other table and we got 'nothing' for our efforts.

One of the best boards in the event was one where my partner Sunil played in a 7nt contract. I wanted to run away while he was playing, I was so nervous to show my hand but his experience and play took over for us to swing the imps in our favour to get qualify for the knock outs. Ecstatic is understatement of the emotion that ran through my mind when we qualified. We did lose in the last 16 to a vastly more experienced team, but for us it was like scaling one of the high peaks.

I initially did not intend participating in the mixed pairs event, but Sukrit, who has really been urging me to play at every instance, and Monica Jajoo, urged, cajoled and pushed me to participate in the event. I was partnered by the young  Pritam Das, who has been playing regularly with me over the past several months. Once again, I have to give credit to my partner for the way he managed the partnership. He was poker faced throughout the event and never once criticized me on the table. The major fear holding me back was 'not wanting to finish last' in the event. So you can imagine the surprise and delight I had when we qualified for the finals! Once again, in the finals, we didn't do particularly well but, for me, that was another peak I scaled.

I returned from the event pretty pleased with myself and motivated to play even better bridge with time. Some other moments which were memorable for me were

• Felicitation of the India Seniors team who have not only created history in their own way, but have also inspired the soul of Indian bridge to push to dream and to achieve the impossible. Congratulations to all of them.
• In Bridge, age has no boundary proven by 85 year old Mr Shastri as a participant.
• Stalwarts like Asha Sharma, Ashok Goel, Vatsala, stopping by smiling to encouraging first time players.
• One of the senior players calling the TD as he thought I had paused more than required to pass bidding information to partner. I do not remember whether I had actually taken more time or he was just doing this to unnerve me.
• Monica Jajoo’s encouragement to young players like me to play the mixed pairs event. Her words : ‘ you have nothing to lose, remove the fear of coming last and think of it as at least being there at the start line’
• Playing with the very talented Pritam Das. He has had a lot to do with the improvement of my game, absorbing my 'palooka' mistakes with patience and a very sweet smile

I am sharing a few photographs which I have of my memories there, not necessarily in any particular order. I hope you, dear readers enjoy reading this article as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Disclaimer : All opinions are entirely those of the author and are no reflection of the views of the BridgeFromHome Team.