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Sole Indian team in World Bridge open

The last 3 days in the Rosenblum teams (Open) event saw the field prune itself down to the knockout stage of 64 teams.

15 rounds of round robin saw most of the teams make the grade in their respective groups (each group comprising 14-15 teams). There were 16 groups, with the top four qualifing. The big upsets in these championships saw the exit of two favourites, both world champions. The reigning world champions of both the 1997 Bermuda Bowl and the 1996 World Olympiad, France, comprising of Paul Chemla, Christian Mari and others finished 6th in their group, thereby killing their ambitions at the teething stage itself.

The other heavyweights, also favourites prior to the start, showed themselves the gate; the American team of Wolfson which includes some of the best players in the world; Mike Rosenberg, fresh from winning the expert of experts Jean Besse Par Contest just 3 days ago, parterning the most colourful personality of world bridge, Zia Mahmood.

Also in the team were one of the best and longest standing partnerships, Chip Martel and Lew Stansby. It's curtains for them too, in these championships. They went out by a slender of 2.5 V.P.s.

Also exiting by a slender margin were the fancied Polish team of Otvosi which includes the world champions Piotr Gawrys and Krzysztof Lasocki. Brachman's team from the USA, too, missed the bus by a whisker, 1.5V.P.s.

The 64 teams will play 56 boards knockout to reduce the field by half to 32 teams.

21 nations out of 80 qualified in the Rosenblum teams with France leading the field with 13 qualifiers, two more than the United States. From across the Channel, the British contingent threw up 7 teams to be the third largest contributer to the list of 64 teams.

Italy and Sweden did a Take-Five, followed by the trinities from Denmark, Poland and the Netherlands. Germany have a couple. Solitary representatives of their countries include India, Switzerland, Greece, Indonesia, Isarel, Brazil, Croatia, South Africa, Canada, Russia, Turkey, and Australia, Europe dominates with over two-thirds of the field -- 44 teams. America has 11, while the Asian challenge is restricted to just a couple of teams, India and Indonesia.

The strong contenders for this world title seem to be (at least on paper), the Walvick team from the USA, what with Chemla and gang and Rosenberg, Zia and Chip Martel throwing in the towel. Walvick has amongst its ranks several times world champions, the renowned and respected pair of Eric Rodwell-Jeff Meckstroth.

It also boasts of the man who has the most number of world titles, Bob Hamman. Though his strong partnership with Bobby Wolff is a thing of the recent past, replacing the Wolff is an equally formidable world champion, Paul Soloway. Nick Nickell and Richard Freeman are the third pair of this strong team. The other title contenders are again two American teams, Jacobs and Robinson. Jacobs has the duo that gave the world the Power Precision system, Alan Sontag and Peter Weichsel, besides Ralph Katz and Grant Baze.

The 4 member team of Robinson: Steve Robinson, Peter Boyd, Kit Woolsey and Ed Manfield -- are also to be taken seriously, as are the Poles having Cezary Balicki and Adam Zmudzinski in their ranks.

The onus of continuing India's challenge in the Rosenblum Teams Open Event lies solely on the shoulders of the 4 member Dipak Poddar's team from Bombay. Competing in probably the strongest group in the Rosenblum, the Poddar team came up roses, qualifying comfortably with a margin of 10 V.P.s ahead of the 5th team. Poddar's group included the big-big heavyweights, France (Paul Chemla, Alain Levy, Christian Mari, etc), the British team of Gus Calderwod, European big guns from the Netherlands, the Anton Maas team and the Ekeblad team from the USA which includes the two Mikes -- Passell and Seamon.

It was the only Indian team from a contingent of 18 to make the grade. Led by the industrialist Dipak Poddar, who is the proprietor of the Monotona group of companies, the rest of the team comprises of the IAS officer, Vinay Mohan Lal, the current chairman of B.E.S.T(BOMBAY), Ramavatar Agrawal from B.A.R.C and Arvind Vaidya. The two Indian teams to miss the bus were Phatarphekar's team from Bombay and Kejriwal. Both were always in contention right throughout, and must be licking their wounds, their margin of exit being 4 and 5 V.P.s respectively.

The fancied Jaggy Shivdasani-led team, though finishing 5th were comfortably out, with 10V.P.s denying them access to the elite group. The other strong Indian outfit, Ruia's, finished 6th in their group, losing their berth by 16V.P.s.

Also ran but never in the running were Dr.Tolani, Kiran Nadar, Sunil Machhar and S.K. Agrawala.