The final set of the UNN Rao Memorial Bridge Tournament saw a total of 120 participants.
Sandeep and Marianne Karmarkar brought the participants home today of Animesh Majumder and Arup Hudait. Pinaki Khan and A Bhattachajee were in thirds place.
The results of yesterday's game can be seen here.
The combined results can be seen here
Special Prizes
The field were wringing their hands in agony as, yet again, the special prize for a hat trick of games remained unclaimed.
Greenhorn Prizes
The first prize for the Newcomer Class Pair has been lifted by S. Balakrishnan and B Viswanathan. This pair has also finished a very creditable 6th position over all. The second prize goes to Sudheer Tambe and Sheila Kriplani. The third prize has been won by Nitin Sanzgiri and Mukesh Bhatia. Once again, all 3 finishers lie in the top 20.
Interesting Hand
Playing 2/1, what do you open with this hand?
2NT auctions can be challenging if the combined strength is 27+ and some distribution hand fit, says Kista, our resident expert.
Hence, I prefer to open 1 Heart because it allows me to maneouvre better. However, my partner passed me and left me to play there.
The above was the North hand. Let us now look at the East hand. Here, you are on lead with the collection alongside and having heard a simple 2NT-P-3H(Transfer)-P-3S-P- 3NT - All Pass.
The HQ seems to be an obvious choice. Which is what many chose. In this kind of auction, you know that partner cannot have much more than nothing. So you try and make a passive lead and hope that partner can help you in the defence with whatever little he has.
But what is a passive lead? You can deduce from the auction that North has 2 spades and a 2-4-4-3 or a 2-5-3-3 kind of hand. Your best bet would be the Ace of Spades. given that you still retain the lead, partner can give you some indication of how to defend the hand. But it goes against the grain so you still lead the heart. But at trick 3, you find yourself winning the spade Ace. What now?
Arun Bapat saw his partner echo on the play of the spades. What would that imply? Arun read it correctly as a suit preference for diamonds and shifted to the diamond king! It is this kind of signalling that is the hall mark of a good partnership. 
This hand is easier to bid using precision where the auction would go along the lines shown to the right. Here 1 Heart shows either hearts or 19+ HCP balanced hand. 1 Spade is a further relay. 2 Clubs shows hearts and clubs. South made a simple preference for hearts which ideally North should have passed.
The par score on this hand is actually 2S!
Such is the fun of the game!