Tolani Summer Nationals - A curtain raiser
The 10th Tolani Summer Nationals tournament starts off next weekend with a plethora of events. We have been particularly impressed by the responsiveness of the BFI to player requirements on more than one count and would like to elaborate on these in the next couple of paragraphs
Beginner's Events
The lockdowns over the past several months have had one advantage for the game of bridge. Since people had limited avenues for entertainment, several people took to learning bridge. We have had several organized learning initiatives arise too, some of which can be seen on the BFH Learning page.
The Beginner's event provides an opportunity for these learners to test their skills in an environment comprising of their peers without the full force of the competing field trying to take advantage of the beginner's lack of savvy.
Since almost all the learning has taken place on BBO, it makes eminent sense to conduct the event on that platform.
Participation of NRIs / OCI
There had been many representations made by people during the Dr. KK Bhatnagar Memorial National Mixed Pairs event that such pairs should be eligible to participate in the finals and win prizes but ineligible for ranking points.
The BFI had, at that time, taken these representations under advice and said it would revisit the issue in the near future. Participants will be happy to know that the BFI has favorably considered their request.
No Major Event on BBO
While, we fully respect the BBO platform as one that has helped develop and popularize the game of bridge over the past two decades, one cannot help but recognize that tournaments held on this platform have increasingly raised questions about the fairness of methods used by the competitors in these tournaments. This is not applicable just to tournaments held by BFI or even in India, but also to events conducted round the world.
BFI has taken this into account and restricted competition in all events to the RealBridge platform which considerably reduces the possibility of using unfair means in an undetected manner.
This does mean that a large part of the population who cannot play on desktops / laptops for one reason or the other will be unable to participate in this edition of the Summer Nationals.
However, we believe it is more important the events conducted by the BFI be seen as conducted in a clean and fair manner.
We hope this event is at least as successful as the BFI Winter Nationals were and wish the participants all the best.
Silver Skies - An event for the lay public
- Sukrit Vijayakar
BridgeFromHome is conducting an event this weekend, Silver Skies, where the Swiss Teams event will be conducted in the Silver Teams format i.e. no team is allowed to have more than two players of the rank of National Master and above. Further these masters may not play together as a pair.
BridgeFromHome's rationale for conducting this event was to shift the focus from the known and accepted luminaries of bridge to good players who have not yet crossed the threshold of National Master. It was also to recognize the achievements of such players and reward them for their performance without their being under the shadows of their more illustrious counterparts. It also provides participant an opportunity to practice for the nationals and win prizes while doing so.
The pairs event scheduled for Sunday 13, June, however, will be an open event with attractive cash prizes for everybody. Prizes will depend on the number of entries.
The total prize money for both events will be a minimum of Rs. 25,000. We wish to thank the sponsor of this event who has insisted on remaining total anonymous.
We would welcome more such sponsors for more such events. But they will be attracted only if you, dear reader, participate actively in these events.
Attention Organisers of Tolani Summer Nationals —- (1) The entry fee for Silver event appears on higher side. Please look into possibilities of keeping it within Rs 1500/=. (2) The entry fee for open pairs is exorbitantly high. This must not exceed 500/=. The suggested fee structure will encourage people to participate in more numbers particularly in pairs
Please reduce entry fee of Tolani Summer Nationals to approx. 500/= as this would increase participation. In present covid circumstances this help is required for many players