PRBA October Newsletter

Greetings to all members of PRBA. 

Since our last newsletter we suffered the immeasurable loss of four of our beloved members – Janak Hathiramani, Suhas Joshi, Suresh Oswal and Vivek Limaye.   This is a loss that cannot be filled and our deepest condolences to their respective families and the entire PRBA community.  Life though has to go on and on the brighter side PRBA signed up many new members in this period.

We hope that all of you are well and are using the forced isolation to good use by taking good care of yourself and your loved ones, learning new activities, and of course playing a lot of online bridge.

Talking of online bridge, the PRBA management too has been quite busy trying to make your online bridge life brighter in the times of Covid-19.  As you will remember, we started regular online bridge in the May-June time frame.  We even signed up forty new PRBA Life members during that time all of who were keen to play online with us.  Unfortunately we could not welcome them all the way we would have liked but we urge our new members to read on till the end to see the welcome surprise we have for them.

The problem was that we had to suspend our online tournaments because BBO suddenly imposed a ban on private tournaments.  Fortunately the BFI was able to negotiate with BBO and we are now in a position to start holding tournaments again.  Which, of course, is what we are going to do now - with a bang!  PRBA is determined to become the go-to place for the best online bridge in India and with your help we will achieve that. 

Last week we organized three special events with preset hands that were widely appreciated and attracted many players (including  National champions) from all over India.  That event will continue to be held in future but for now we want to announce our calendar for October.  You will love what we have to offer!

1. 1. 19792765. Coaching for intermediate players

Aniruddha Sanzgiri, the renowned coach from Thane will be conducting an online coaching programme, exclusively for our members.  He has been kind enough to offer his services to the PRBA  at a steeply discounted rate of Rs. 110 per topic (he normally charges Rs. 200).  He will be conducting four classes on the next four Sundays starting October 11th.  Enroll for all four classes and you can avail of a further discounted price of Rs. 400/- for all four sessions, all inclusive.

The topics for this month are:

• October 11 – Opening leads
• October 18 –  Entry management
• October 25 – Notrump bidding
• November 1 – Blocking and unblocking

Every session includes the following:

• An introductory electronic booklet instructing students on the topic to be covered
• A 12 deal tournament with topic-specific deals (conducted on BBO)
• A followup  interactive online meet where deals played will be reviewed.  Students are encouraged to ask questions to resolve doubts, if any

So we encourage everyone interested in improving their game to take advantage of this fantastic offer and enroll at http://shop.prba.in

1. 1. 263295551. 16 board pairs with expert analysis

In every week of October we will conduct two pairs tournaments (either matchpoints or IMP format).  But this will not be just another tournament where you come, play and forget everything.  At the end of the tournament you will not only be given the hand records for all the hands you played but will also be given an expert’s analysis of the interesting hands with suggestions on how those hands should be handled.  No other tournament in India offers this kind of service.  We know you will love our tournament and really hope to see you there in large numbers.

The tournaments will be conducted every Wednesday and Saturday at 4 pm.  And even better, we offer you flexibility about which tournament you want to play in and will not insist that you pay for the entire month. You can purchase entries for individual events for Rs. 50 per person (Rs. 100 per pair) or pay a flat sum of Rs 400 per person to play in the entire set of eight tournaments.  And remember, the expert analysis is free and included in the tournament price!

And now for the surprise welcome gift for all our new members.  If you have joined PRBA any time after April 1^st. 2020, you will get to play in these events for the entire October free of charge.

We can assure you that this is not all.  We are working on getting many more exciting offerings into your hands soon.  Watch this space for more. 

1. 1. 847608527. schedule for October 2020