The next couple of months mark the festive season in India along with the Senior Selection Trials coming up this weekend. While we refrained from conducting an event this weekend to give the seniors their due, we do have a host of events chalked up over the coming several weeks. One of them, the UNN Rao Memorial Tournament, is in an exciting new format which bears some explanation.
We hope that all of you will participate in these events in large numbers as usual.
The Sanjay Damle Memorial - 29th to 31st October
Most of the younger generation have not heard about Sanjay Damle. Indeed, for a lot of us, he is but a fleeting memory of a player of yore.
For people from Maharashtra though, he was a collossus towards the turn of the century as he won several titles as a player and conducted several events as a director as well. He had won a National Masters Pairs Championship with Arun Bapat at the Kakinada Nationals
Life dealt him a cruel blow in the form of a stroke which robbed him of a lot of his vitality. It did not reduce the sharpness of his mind as he continued to perform well at the state level before another stroke took him away from us.
To commemorate his memory, his home association, Thane District Bridge Association, along with BFH is hosting this tournament which consists of two events viz
Prizes worth Rs. 50,000 have been announced for this event
The UNN Rao Memorial IMP Pairs - 8-11 and 15-17 November
This is an event in an exciting new format featuring 4 days of qualifications and 3 days of finals. Confused? We hope we can simplify over the next few paragraphs.
Timings
In the first place, the event is being played only on Weekday evenings from 630 pm. Each session will be of 20 boards.
Scoring
The scoring methodology is also extremely novel. Each session will be played as a 20 board event and scored in X-IMPs. At then end of the day, however, the total IMPs earned will be converted into VPs using the WBF 20-0 continuous VP scale
Prizes
The total prize money for the event is Rs. 2.50 Lakhs.
Each qualification event is a standalone event with its own set of prizes. To play in the week of the finals though, pairs have to play at least 3 of the four qualification events. For those who play all four, their best three scores will be considered for selection.
Qualification
The top 32 pairs qualify for the Gold Finals. The remaining will play the Silver Finals. All finalists will have to have played a minimum 3 rounds of qualification to be eligible to play in the finals.
Entry Fees
Basically, the entry fee for each session is Rs. 300 only. Since the finals consist of 3 sessions and the finalists have to play all three days, the entry fee for the finals is an additional Rs. 900.
However, the organizers are offering a single ticket for all 7 days priced at Rs. 1,400 only! That is a whopping discount of 33% for the event! Click here to Register for all 7 days