LAHORE: Azhar Hameed and Shauq Hussain won Pairs event of the ongoing Balijee International Bridge Championship on Monday.
The four-day 14th international championship moved into the third round at the Lahore Gymkhana bridge tables and while the team event started at 3pm yesterday and will be contested on Tuesday and Wednesday to decide the champions for this year.
Pairs event came to a conclusion at around 1.30pm after three sessions and 66 boards with the ultimate winners Azhar Hameed and Shauq Hussain of Lahore providing moments that were brilliance enriched. Certainly during the pairs event their consistency has taken them to this elevated level, the secret of their durability being focus and a perfect combination and keeping caution a priority. Their strategy revolved around safety first approach and avoided risking a top and bottom score and that paid dividends in the ultimate count.
All through the Pairs Event, the fight for the top slot has been filled with awesome moves by combinations like Mubashir Puri and Sapan Desai, Umer Aslam and Uzair Kamal, Imran Abedi and Parvez Mirza and Kamran Ibrahim and Masood Mazhar. A special mention needs to be made of the combination of young but bearded Mubashir Puri and the bridge playing professional from Ahmedabad, India Sapan Desai.
They maintained winning strides till the very end and their effort to pace out Azhar and Shauq was courageous and expertise oriented, yet did not succeed in the overall reckoning. It was by the barest of margins that Mubashir and Sapan missed the top position and had to be content with the second slot. Other combinations who demonstrated some sparkling touches were the combination of Umair Aslam and Uzair Kamal and Imran Abedi and Parvez Mirza.
Quite a few other combinations may not have made it to the top, yet they had a lot of fun and do not have any regrets about losing.
The top 15 position holders in pairs event are: Azher Hameed and Shauq Hussain 60; Mubashir Puri and Sapan Desai 59.13; Umar Aslam and Uzair Kamal 58.64; Imran Abedi and Parvez Mirza 58.57; Kamran Ibrahim and Masood Mazhar 57.19; Arsalan Mansoor and Hasnat Mehmood 56.96; Rashidul Ghazi and Tehhsinn Gheewala 56.06; Rana Kamal and Salman Bokhari 55.48; Anwar Kizilbash and G Mohammed 55.38; Farooq Alvi and Izzat Khalil 55.17; Javed Khalid and Saeed Akhter 55.08; M Imran and asim Rahim 54.32; Ahsan Qureshi and Zia Hyder Naqvi 53.62; Abdul Hameed and Col Nasir 53.21; Farrukh Liaqat and Gulzar Billal 53.15.
The talented one from India, Sapan Desai was all praise for the skillful display of good play by Shauq and Azhar Hameed. Indeed they played to a plan and although we made some strategic moves, we missed out beating them.
In the Pairs Event for Ladies the winning pair turned out to be the combination off Azza Qashu and Randa Saket from Jordan. They outsmarted the top local combination of Rubina Agha and Zeenat Azwar who ended up as runners up.
The ladies combination of Paro Raza and Rehana Saigol came third. And Azza Qashu of Jordan was elated by her performance as she and her partner managed to beat the local top ones.
“This is going to be a memorable trip for us” said Azza of Jordan.
Team event kicked off at 3.00 pm on Saturday and amongst the 20 teams contesting, playing members of at least 12 teams have international exposure who will be demonstrating their skills over the next two days. With steady nerves, master artists like Shauq Hussain, Mubashir Puri, Imran Abedi, Parvez Mirza, Kamran Ibrahim, Masood Mazhar, Rashidul Ghazi, Tehsin Gheewala, Anwar Qizilbash, Javed Khalid, Saeed Akhter, Farrukh Lliaqat and Gulzar Bilal will be restoring enough competitive life to this championship, to show case it with fills of excellence in play. Fireworks are also expected from players like Izzat Khalil, Ghias Mallik, Noman Butt, A K Bhurgari and two ladies Tahira Liaqat and Tahira Nasir. All of them have ability to produce forceful play and make the opposition just a little less functional, depriving it of success.
The organising team at this championship has been simply great with Ihsan Qadir, Sarfraz Butt, Ameer Hussain and Mohammed Asif Sheikh in full control. Also there to monitor is Mazhar Jaffery of the World Bridge Federation.
