The senior Selection trials got under way earlier today. At the end of day 1, Shree Cement was on top of the leader board. The overall standings can be seen on the left.
Team Navjoti was penalized for psyching an artificial strong bid which is in violation of system policy.
While the leader looks far away, 9 VPs is not much of a lead given that another set of matches is yet to be played tomorrow.
Indeed, the whole schedule is very long and gruelling. For details of the format please refer to the details on the BFI website.
While this is the first physical top level competition since the lock down, we hope there will be many more to come in the near future.
This competition is seeing some regular partnerships like Vinay Desai / Anand Samant and Ravi Goenka / Kista, it is also seeing some new combinations in the form of Arun Bapat / Jitu Solani and Ajay Khare / R Shridharan.
Indeed we can only imagine the pleasure they must have experienced meeting each other after so many months.
We also have a lovely photograph of the current BFI secretary, Mr. Pradeep Kulkarni (sitting in the centre) along with the indefatigable T C Pant (or, as Raju Tolani fondly calls him, "Laluji") and Hemant Pande the new treasurer of BFI. Standing behind are Subbu and Srini, both looking slim and trim along with Chetan Rawal, the ubiquitous 'dealer' of cards.
We have to inform you that Chetan was recently blessed with a daughter who had to surmount severe difficulties to settle down to what we hope is a long and happy life.
We will try and provide some more insights into the competition going on there tomorrow.