The 45th WORLD TEAM CHAMPIONSHIPS got underway yesterday for the Bermuda Bowl (OPEN), Venice Cup (Women), d'Orsi Trophy (SENIORS) and Wuhan Cup (MIXED) categories.
TC Pant represents India as the official representative.
It is great to see the resumption of face to face Bridge at the world level at Salsomaggiore, a small town in Italy where the whole population, including the Mayor, supports Bridge. These Bridge festivals are a source of income for local businesses and, of course, many of them play them too.
At the left, you can see photographs of the venue and the playing arena. These have been shared by various members of the contingent. (We would be grateful for many more such photographs - Eds)
Indian tournament director, Sanjay Chakraborty has been included in the officiating TDs for the world championships. Best wishes Sanjay.
(He informs he had a quiet first two sessions and attended 5 calls in the 3rd.
Another insight he shared was that the players are invariably polite. Every request is preceded by a 'please' and every ruling is greeted with a 'thank you' even if the ruling has gone against the player).
Clicking on your team on the right will give you a snapshot of their progress match by match. Clicking on the total VPs column will give you the full scorecard for that match. You can further drill down to each deal, get the deal record. Play and bidding may not be available for all matches, but if the team is featured on VU Graph you will have the complete record.
The Indian OPEN team had an initial hiccup on the opening day losing to Hungary 31-42 (6.96-13.04). After this, they came back strongly to register two wins against Guadelope 23-19 (11.2-8.8) and Canada 49-37 (13.28-6.72).
The Indian OPEN team has three of the strongest pairings in India, Rajeshwar Tewari-Keyzad Anklesaria, Jaggy Shivadashani-Sandeep Thakral and Sumit Mukerjee-Debabrata Majumdar (Laltu). Debasish Ray is the team captain (npc) and coach.
In a very strong field, India is currently at the 12th position. India plays Switzerland who are currently 8th and plays a strong USA2 in the last match today. Both matches are likely to be on VU Graph on Bridge Base Online. Follow their progress here.
The Indian Ladies team opened the day against UAE whom they had met for the BFAME championships. Though India won these championships, the UAE team had bested India on 4 out of 5 occasions in the Round Robin. UAE put up a strong showing and beat India 23-40 (5.61-14.29).
This unexpected loss puts India at the 19th position at the end of the first day. However, there is still a long way to go.
Indian seniors are represented by Anil Padhye-Rajesh Dalal, Sukamal Das-Subrata Saha, Ashok Goel-R Krishnan. R Krishnan (Kista) had to replace K R Venkatraman who was incapacitated by ill health. We wish him a speedy recovery.
Three very strong and consistent pairings who have played together for a very long time represent Indian Mixed team with Kiran Nadar-B Satyanarayana (who have represented India several times in the Open team), Rajiv and Himani Khandelwal, Sandeep and Marianne Karmakar. Vinay Desai is their NPC and coach. Their progress can be viewed here.
Can’t thank you enough for bringing this bulletin. May this effort continue to keep us informed. Thanks Manoj.
Indian seniors are doing well after the initial 3 rounds. Hope to see them in knockouts a later stage.
Nitin Vaidya
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