This is a small story of our journey through the Ashok Ruia Senior Pairs, at the Jabalpur Winter Nationals 2024. While we would honestly admit that we didn't even dream of becoming National Champions, the story of our journey is one that miracles are made of!
In the first place, we were not even supposed to play the event together, notwithstanding the fact that Vilas Chouthai and I are age old residents of Pune and have played as partners many times since 1990!
Indeed, we would not even have played had not Vikas Taralekar had to suddenly withdraw from this event.
Thankfully, the tournament directors, allowed this last minute substitution!
The field had pairs like V M Lal & Anand Samant, Arun Bapat & Hemant Pande, Ravi Raman and Ivan Alphonso and many other players whom we were not knowing.
The format was of 3X14 boards. We played the first round of 14 boards without looking at the score that we obtained. Our sole focus was on not making mistakes on any board. Having said that, we did have a fairly inauspicious start to the session.
On this board, our first, we ended up sacrificing in 6♥ against a 6♣ bid by our opponents. This turned out to be a phantom as 6♣ has no chance after a heart lead
Fortunately for us, a couple of pairs made the slam and restricted our losses to 4 imps.
In the companion board, our opponents stayed out of a cold slam gifting us 11 imps. Indeed, of such gifts is the championship made.
At the end of the second round, Arun Bapat told me that our pair is leading the field. It was then that I went to the score board saw that after the first round, we were seventh with +15 IMPS, & at the end of second round, we were first with +61 IMPS !!!
In this round too, opponents were kind enough to give us some gifts. One pair missed bidding a cold slam on board 2 and another adventured disastrously into 5♠. It wouldn't be fair to claim 'credit' for these gains. But, without gains like these, it is impossible for anybody to win any tournament, leave alone a tournament of this stature
Having been made aware by Arun Bapat, I told my partner that now, during the last session, we should not lose any single board.
We tried that to the extent of our bridge knowledge, played down the line but this board against Arun Bapat and Hemant Pande could have caused us problems
We were on our way to bidding a slam when we got doubled in 5♠.
Now, 12 tricks were there for the taking with the ♥ A being rightly placed. Given that several of the field were in 6 spades, this could have cost us 8 imps but, for reasons beyond my understanding, Hemant Pande ducked the ♥Ace twice.
This allowed me to discard the remaining two hearts on my clubs and make 13 tricks. This allowed us to score +850 and win 9 imps on the board
You have to concede that this is providence
However the greatest gift came a few rounds earlier when our opponents ventured into a 6♠. I was looking at 2 Aces and I aggressively doubled. We got our opponents 3 down for a score of +800 and 14 imps (since most of the field had scored 4♠).
If you consider the fact that our margin of victory was 19 imps, you can understand how big that contribution was.
I think that playing down the line with discipline, avoiding fancy occasions and with a few gifts, we won this tournament. Needless to say, the thrill of having won a National Championship is unparalleled. And, after having won it, I can safely say that it is a humbling experience. We are intermediate players, not masters, and we have “Miles to go before we sleep, miles to go before we sleep” !!!