U-28: Aniket, Sapan, Prashanth, Guthi, Sandip, Pravin. 7th man: Prasenjit.
U-26: Anurag, Ayan, Dashu, Rishabh, Vinoth, Karan.
The U-28 team looks in decent shape; although we have only two world-class players in Sapan and Aniket, there are three pairs, not six players, which is good. Compare that to the U-26 team in which apart from Ayan and Dashu, nobody has played with anyone else. Add to that the fact that Karan is fourteen years old and needs plenty of training.
The Bridge Federation of India, though, has reason to be concerned about the teams given the quality (or rather, the lack of it) of play at the trials. None of us played to our potential; we are all far better players than how it must have appeared that weekend. The defense in particular looked very shoddy, even from the relatively better players.
Consider the following two deals from a set Guthi and I played against Aniket and Sandip. Keep in mind that all of us are supposed to be among the top six junior players in India.
(I don't remember the exact bidding or spots, but they are not relevant to the moral of the story)
I started with three top spades, Guthi pitching the D6 and the C2 in that order. We were playing upside down carding with odd/even first discard, so this sequence discourages diamonds and encourages clubs. Obediently I shifted to a club.Declarer won with the ace, cashed DA and ran trumps. Placing partner with Qxxx of clubs and declarer with DQ, I discarded all my clubs, hanging on to a top spade (over the 9 in dummy) and a top diamond (over the imagined Q in hand). Declarer now made all his clubs for the contract. Note that even if I had read the diamond position correctly, I was caught in a positional spade-club squeeze and there was no defense.
The organizers and I were both quick to criticize Guthi, but it was Aniket who pointed out that I could have solved all problems by leading a fourth spade and killing the menace in dummy. Now no true squeeze can develop, and by the time I come down to JT9 of clubs and K of diamonds partner would have found a way to undo his mistake and make the position clear to me (by pitching the queen of clubs or queen of diamonds or both).
On the following hand I was declarer and the misdefense was from them. (Hands rotated, EW hands approximate)
Needing little more than a spade honour from partner, I bid the vulnerable game but dummy came up with all the wrong honours. West led the D8 and I won with dummy's queen. Hoping that east will have a stiff spade honour, I led a trump but east played low and west won. Now a return through any of dummy's honours will ensure an immediate one-trick set but Aniket returned a trump, doubtless to prevent diamond ruffs. This works, too, as if I ruff a diamond with the third trump in dummy I will be stuck in the wrong hand. Sandip won with SK and returned the DT. I won, and with nothing better to do, ran the trumps and willed east to discard a diamond. Sandip obliged and I ran all the trumps and diamonds to catch him in a strip-squeeze.
Dummy: - / K 9 / - / Q 8
Declarer: - / 3 / 7 / A 5
The D7 is led and the H9 pitched. What does Sandip do on this trick? If he bares his ace of hearts, I can throw him in with the heart and force him to lead away from his CK. If he bares his CK, I can cash two club tricks. His hesitation on this trick was telling, and when he pitched a club I cashed the ace of clubs dropping his king.
I am not sure if Aniket's trump return was a mistake, but Sandip definitely made two errors. He must not pitch any diamonds (they lead low from three small cards in a suit bid by partner so he had the count) on the run of the trumps. Having made the mistake of pitching a diamond, he can see the strip-squeeze coming and must do his thinking early, baring the king of clubs well before the ninth trick. Since I can't be sure of the count in clubs and hearts I may play to throw him in with the ace of hearts.
Hopefully we will all get into shape before Beijing. The World Mind Games begin on October 3rd.
Cheers,
SP.
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