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Kicking off with mixed doubles

The tenth edition of the World Bridge Championships kicked off with the qualifing rounds of the Mixed Pairs event.

Close to six hundred pairs -- 598 to be precise -- took part in the three session qualifing round. Leading the field were the Italian pair of E.Rossano and V. Vivaldi, who averaged a shade under 62%. Also from pasta-land were their fellow countrypersons M.Cuzzi and M.Lanzorotti, lying second.

The Europeans dominated the field, occupying the top seven spots. Over 150 European pairs made the finals, while Americans have thirty-three pairs and India, eight pairs, who will be battling it out in the two sessions finals.

It was interesting to note that the defending champions of the 1994 Mixed Pairs, D.Hocheker and Apolinary Kowalski of Poland, just about made it by the skin of their teeth, finishing 233rd -- the cut-off point was 233! Talk about proverbial whiskers.

The qualifiers will be joined by 27 participants from the Par Contest (which was run concurrently) and their partners, rounding the field to 260 pairs for the finals.

Kiran Nadar and Satyanaran lead the Indian Challenge. Just less than half the Indian pairs who participated in the Mixed Pairs made the finals. Eight out of 18 pairs are in the short list, with Kiran Nadar Satyanarayan of Delhi leading the Indian pack with a score of 56.18%. They finished 41st overall. Kiran is the better half of The computer maganate of India, Shiv Nadar of HCL. India's most famous player Jaggy Shivdasani, who is partnering C. Goldberg of the USA, is second among the Indians. This being a transnational event, players from different nations can partner each other. Only Kiran and Jaggy will get a carryover going into the finals, as only the top 77 pairs are eligible for the same.

The longstanding partnership of Ratanlal Kejriwal and Bimal Sicka occupied the 90th position, thereby comfortably making the grade.

The gynaecologist from Bombay, Dr.Bomsi Wadia and his partner for years, Uma Singh, finished 102nd with 54.1%, followed by the Bombay-Delhi combo of Deepak Poddar and Rita Choksi, the latter being arguably India's best lady player.

The only husband-wife pair to reach the finals were the Nagpur pair of Rajiv Khandelwal and his wife, followed by Bharati Dey and Sunil Machar of Bombay. The last Indian pair to catch the bus were Parasrampuria and Jeroo Mango, also of Bombay, the latter being the wife of the Greek Counsel General in Bombay, Tony Mango. Jeroo owns the Danai chain of book-shops.

Surprise non-qualifiers were the pairs of J.M.Shah and Gita Lakhani, Dr.N.P.Tolani and Hilda Raymond and Shilu Thadani and Rajeshwar Tiwari.

Micheal Rosenberg meanwhile emerged trumps in the Par Contest, which featured the creme de la creme of world bridge. Thirty-four players were tossed 12 pre-set deals and the experts had to crack these tough nuts. They sat at a personal computer which gave them the details of the problem, and made the defensive plays. They had to approach the problems logically and technically and when they made an error the computer was lightning quick on the draw to point it out; 3 errors in a deal got them the Indian contribution to mathematics, a zero.

Also, competitors were charged points in direct proportion to the time they consumed. Each competitor started with a bank of 2000 points per deal, from which deductions were made. Though Rosenberg made an error more than his compatriot, Bart Bramley, he won as he had taken less time in sorting out the 12 problems. Out of a possible 24,000 points Mike scored 16,850 points.

USA took the top three spots with Bart Bramley and Eric Rodwell finishing 2nd and 3rd respectively. Rosenberg picked up a cool $35,000, whilst Bramley and Rodwell got $17500 and $10,000 respectively for their cerebral efforts.

The problems were set by the late Jean Besse of Switzerland after whom the Par Contest has been named, the Jean Besse Trophy. The personal computer was first used in the 1990 World Championships, in Geneva, Switzerland, which the great Italian maestro of the dream Blue team, Benitto Garozzo had won. He participated here too, but wont have much to write home about his performance. Probably the best rated player in the world today, Geir Helgemo of Norway finished seventh. Other well known stars who finished in the top ten were Cezary Balicki of Poland, Tony Forrester and Andy Robson of Great Britain and Bob Hamman and Jeff Meckstroth of the USA.

The flamboyant Pakistani, Zia Mahmood, more kmown for his flair and table-presence, didn't do well in this theoritical and technical event. The Ginsberg progamme GIB (Goren In a Box) was the sole electronic competitor, and was doing fantastically at the halfway stage but slipped up later, its shortcoming being interpretation of inferences available from the bidding. So its still Man over Machine as far as bridge goes.

How long? Who knows!

There is a perennial oneupmanship on between the Americans and the Europeans, especially the Brits. The Daily Bulletin of these championships featured the British actor and comedian, John Cleese being quoted on why Brits are superior: 1.They speak English. 2. When they host a world championship they invite other countries. 3. Visitors to the head of state are expected to go down on only one knee.

Score one for the Europeans.

Over 80 countries are competing in these championships, with over 5000 participants! Truly, this is the largest international bridge event in the world.

The Mixed Pairs finals are on currently and the Rosenblum Cup (Open) Teams Events and the McConnell Cup for Women are due to follow, spread over the next 9 and 8 days respectively. Stay tuned.

Dr Subir Roy is participating, in India colours, at the World Bridge Championships.