My father and I had performed decently in the domestic bridge circuit over the last few years, and, when the Euro Cup in Poznan, Poland, came along, we felt that it was the right time to test our systems, partnership & performance at the international stage, and see how we perform with such varying opponent systems & people of various nationalities.
We could not have chosen a tougher platform to do this. Every pair was recognized as a strong pair by their respective NBOs.
Secondly, to make everyone understand the level of difficulty of this international event, let me start with the whole proces. In the qualfying round of the Open MP Pairs event. To participate in this event, you had to be in good standing with your National NBO in your country of origin.
A total of 260 pairs participated in the event. The elimination was played over 2 days and 3 sessions of 16 boards on each day, a total of 96 boards.
From the first round only 70 pairs (i.e. 27% of the field) qualified to the semi finals. 10 pairs dropped in from losing teams. This two was played over two days, comprising of 96 boards in total.
From these 80, only 21 (again 26% of the field) qualified to the final A strata where they were joined by 5 more pairs from the teams event. The rest of the field played Strata B.
The finals was an all play all over 50 boards.
In short, the competition was truly tough.
As far as our results go, we qualified for the Semi-Final securing the 37th rank at the end of 2 days.
In the Semi Final A, we were in the run for qualifying in the top 21, till the 6th round. We, however, finished 56th out of 80 pairs after 2 days of Semi finals.
In the Finals B, we finished Rank 13, in a field of 170. Overall, it was an extremely satisfying event from that point of view.
From the 80 pairs playing the Semi Final A, only top 21 pairs (again top 26%) would qualify for the Final A, and balance pairs would play the Final B.
So essentially, in a field of 260 World level pairs, you had to finish in the top 21, to reach the finals, and top 70 to even reach the Semi finals.
However, apart from the performance, there were many things worth appreciating about the event.
The playing conditions were fantastic and the highlight of this event.
On every single table, as a security and fool proof measure (to avoid any potential form of cheating), there were Screens, live recording cameras. There was a distance of at least 15 feet between any 2 tables. The scoring was barometric, so all deals were being played simultaneously on each table.
The quality of deals was excellent, and I would rate them way better than what we get here in the Indian setup. Every single deal had lot of decisions, and the best part was that each seating position got multiple decisions across 16 boards. None of the sets were lopsided, in terms of giving all decisions or high cards to any one set of directions. There were slams & Grand slams, and there were boards for defenses, partial competitions, safety plays, and bidding disciplines.
Our system & partnership understanding was thoroughly tested by the deals, and I was extremely happy at the end of 5 days, that we had zero miscommunication in our bidding, and zero director calls against us.
The kicker was the new and latest bidding methodology being adopted. The entire bidding had to happen on Ipads. Each direction on every single table was given a separate Ipad, marked with their position, and the pair name appeared on the Ipad automatically, and had to be clicked on before sitting on the table.
Bidding could only start once all 4 players clicked on their names, thus verifying their identities. Then the entire regular bidding took place on the Ipad (it had Undo option to correct any mis-clicks), with a 10 second verification window to correct the bid that had been made, before it got posted and appeared on other Ipads. This completely avoided any sort of bidding mistakes, and director calls. There were Director call buttons on the Ipads, and in the entire 5 days of play, we had 1 director call for revoke by the opponents.
All in all, it was an extremely satisfying experience, not only in terms of our performance in the event but also an exposure to the latest technology being used in the world of bridge.
Disclaimer : All opinions are entirely those of the author and are no reflection of the views of the BridgeFromHome Team.