A few thoughts on the recently completed Yeshwantrao Holkar Bridge Championships (all my own work!)
The Event itself
All the events were conducted well and like clockwork. Brilliant organization notwithstanding the constraints (those will be covered later). While the dwindling number of participants is a sad reality, below is what I found heartening about the various events.
Swiss League
The top two finishers in the Swiss League comprised of people whose names rarely feature in any event of note in the bridge calendar.
Team Avagard (Jitesh Agrawal, Dr. V Naneria, Pankaj Agrawal and Prashant Singhal) topped the league. This from a 4 member team is absolutely fantastic. Another amazing fact is that none of them is a National Master. Over and above that, when you consider the fact that Jitesh Agrawal was also having to handle a myriad of responsibilities as virtually the chief organizer of the event, their performance was out of this world.
Team VFJ (Pintu Sao, Pankaj Chaudhary, Hemant Ahirwar, Saikat Roy, Prakash Gupta and C V Kekre) finished second. Like Avagard, none of them is a National Master either! While Pintu Sao and Hemant Ahirwar were part of the team that finished second in the Summer Nationals (Silver Category), we have not seen this team before.
We hope that these two teams also play the Jabalpur Nationals and repeat their scintillating performances
Two other teams that I personally would like to mention for their performances are Promise (Marianne Karmarkar, R. Anbazhagan, Rahul Shetty, Mahesh Rohera, V Ravindran and Sudhir Chaudhary) who finished 4th and Mitravihar (Hemant Pande, Rahul Khambete, Dr. Atul Dashputre and Dilip Gosavi) who finished 11th. Both teams would have played out of their skins to achieve these results.
Another team whose performance I found remarkable was Maverick Prodigies. Not only did they beat their senior team, and the eventual champions, in the league, but they also finished higher than them in the Swiss League standings! This is not the first time this team has done it. Once again, hats off to Subodh Maskara for founding the team. We hope it continues to achieve more and greater laurels.
IMP Pairs
If I were to mention one thing about the pairs event, it would be the number of young pairs in the finals. We, of course, had Sayantan and Sagnik, who are recognized among the top players in the country today. Along with them were Soham Sarkar and Subashree Basu, who have been consistent performers in the last several months, Pritam Das and Soumya Das, Wrik Chakaraborty and S Chatterjee. While these are juniors, there are many more names in this list e.g. J Srinivasan, Joyrup Mukherjee and Sabyasachee Sadhukan, Saikat Roy and Hemant Ahirwar, Vikrant Mehta and Dr. Animesh Raj. This can only augur well for Indian Bridge.
Technical Issues
While it is easy to find fault with the organization of an event forgetting, in the big picture, how smoothly and well it was conducted, this event has a lot of technical issues which make it fall short of being a top class event. What is worrisome is that some of these issues are ongoing.
I heard murmurs of fund constraints restricting the investment that the committee could make into addressing these issues. I have just one comment to make on the same. If any event can increase the prize purse by any amount to make it attractive to participants, it makes sense to set aside a part of that increase to pay people to ensure that the event looks like the top class event that it is supposed to be.
We hope the organizers take our criticism as constructive as I hasten to mention that this criticism, in no way detracts from how well the event was run
Directors
The first issue is the number of directors. We had 3 directors covering a field of 52 tables in two rooms during the Swiss League. We required at least one more. We would like to think that the tournament committee reached out to more than one other director requesting them to officiate. If they did, and nobody responded positively, it is a matter of concern for them that people would rather not direct at Indore.
This shortage was exacerbated during the pairs when one director had to be set aside for the knock outs and only two directors were managing 50 odd tables.
On the last day, one director was managing both, the teams finals as well as the pairs finals. Given that the teams final was conducted at least 100 meters away from the pairs finals, it would have been tough to manage.
Volunteers
One day, I noticed Jitesh Agrawal personally shifting tables to help set up the room for the next day.
A few years ago, I had seen one of the directors lifting tables and moving them single handedly. While one admires both their spirit and commitment to the game, the fact remains that people of their age should not be hefting tables individually.
We are not clear whether a couple of additional volunteers was not budgeted for or unavailable. Either way, this remains a lacuna which needs addressing on a war footing!
Website Management
The website management, honestly, leaves a lot to be desired.
At the time of writing, nearly 22 hours after the completion of the event, the home page is showing data pertaining to the previous years edition.
The forms for registration on the website were made available more than a week after a message was circulated on WA Groups to send data and payment details.
The teams finals result is still not available on the website.
It was difficult to get timely update of the results posted to the website.
While a number of us chipped in to relay these results to the avid watchers of the event, a top class event is supposed to be doing things much much better.
In Conclusion
In conclusion one would reiterate that the event was conducted smoothly and successfully. However, the issues that we have pointed out remain glaring, and the organizers would do well to address them for future editions of the event. We once again congratulate them and wish them all the best.
Please do share your comments in the space below.
Disclaimer : All opinions are entirely those of the author and are no reflection of the views of the BridgeFromHome Team.
I’d like to add another issue that I find of concern. The KO matches do not use bridgemates and so the eventual results or deal records can’t be made available online – except for the segments on vugraph.
Review and analysis form a significant part of a partnership’s preparation work. And not having data available from a major ranking event is frustrating.
Was unaware of this. Never been to that exalted section here!
Yes indeed, a laptop, a bridgemate server and some bridgemates is all it takes. Surely organizable.
I live in the US, and came here for my first major tournament in India. While I had a great time overall, I had a couple of issues with the organization, which I have mentioned below. I wrote this to the tournament email address too, but did not even get an acknowledgment.
1. The detailed hands and results for the Monday pairs games (elimination rounds 3-5 are still not posted on the Bridgewebs site. Only the overall standings are available. This is very disappointing for people like me who want to analyze the hands with their partners soon after the event. Tuesday’s hands are already posted (but only for one of the sessions), but Monday’s have not yet been posted.
2. The tournament website and the bridgewebs site should give contacts of organizers, scorers, directors, etc. (preferably email and mobile), so people can send them queries or contact them about issues. If the directors etc do not want to be disturbed, then one person can be designated to receive and respond to any such issues. I had to search a lot before finding holkarbridgecampionship@gmail. com. It was nowhere on the bridgewebs site.
You are right. The administrative aspects of the event do leave a lot to be desired.
Congratulations and thanks Sukrit for bringing out the pluses and minuses of the tournament.
The successful/outcome of any tournament can be gauged quantitatively as well.
Like giving weightage criteria to various features which make the event successful/meaningful and are aligned to achieve intended goals.
I feel Your’s well thought written article would pave the way for improving the quality and bringing it to the satisfaction level of concerned players.
Thanks for your kind words!