16th Balijee International Bridge Championship: Qizilbash Pair emerge winner

LAHORE: The 16th Balijee International Bridge Championship moves into the third day at the Lahore Gymkhana bridge tables on Saturday.

The team event commenced at 3.00pm on Friday and will be contested on Sunday and Monday to decide the champions for this year.

The Pairs Event came to a conclusion at around 1.00pm on Saturday after three sessions and 72 boards with the absolute and pivotal winners Anis ur Rehman and Anwer Mumtaz Qizilbash of Karachi providing moments that were smart, sagacious and inspiring. In the course of the battle for victory in this Pairs Event, the mercurial Anwer Qizilbash and the ever steady and reliable Anis ur Rehman gave a cohesive demonstration of bridge markmanship. 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 an ability to fire their intelligence with all barrels charging.

All through the Pairs Event, the fight for the top slot has been filled with formidable, imposing and intimidating moves by combinations like Javed Khalid and Saeed Akhter, Ahsan Javed Qureshi and Mirza Shauq Hussain and of course the super ones Kemal Shoaib and Khurshid Hadi. And it would be no exaggeration that, no matter how well they combined, the spins from the table of the winners Anis ur Rehman and Anwar Qizilbash were always a pulverizing force for the opponents. Quite a few other combinations may not have made it to the top, yet they feel delighted with the environment at Gymkhana, the organisation and most of all the hospitality of Aijaz Ahmed and Tahira Nasir.

The Pairs who attained top 10 positions are: Anis ur Rahman & Anwar Mumtaz Qizilbash 62.07%, Javed Khalid & Saeed Akhtar 58.39%, Ahsan Javed Qureshi & Mirza Shauq Hussain 58.12%, Kemal Shoaib & Khurshid Hadi 57.97%, Mirza Asfandiyar Hussain & Tahir Abbas Mirza 57.94%, Sapan Desai & Subhash Gupta 57.53%, Ghias A. Malik & Nauman Khalid Butt 57.26%, Asha Sharma & Avijit Chakvaborty 56.43%, Tehsin Gheewala & Rashidul Ghazi 56.20%, Khaled Mohiuddin & M Mubashir Puri 56.07%,

In the race for honors in the Ladies Pairs Event, the daunting and menacing ones was the pairing of Fatima Raza and Rubina Agha, their winning score being 55.62. Second position was attained by the ladies pair of Preeti Nihalani and Rekha Desai, with a score of 49.28.

Team event kicked off at 3.00pm on Saturday and with 23 teams contesting, the bridge tables were packed to capacity. Prominent ones who will be exhibiting their skills over the next two days are master artists like Javed Khalid (Islamabad), Rashid ul Ghazi, Mubashir Puri, Khalid Hamid Mohiuddin, Hassan Askari, Gulzar Bilal, Kemal Shoaib, Khurshid Hadi and Tehsin Gheewala, all from Karachi. International presence through Sapan Desai (India) and Subash Gupta (India) will be enhancing the competitive fierceness. And then the Lahori might revolves around players like Ahsan Qureshi, Nauman Butt, Malik Ghias, Shauq Hussain, Ghalib Bandesha and Asad Maqbool. The youngest one capable of creating waves is Mirza Asfandyar.

The Organizing team at this championship has been simply great with Ihsan Qadir, Sarfraz Butt, Syed Amir Hassan and M Asif Sheikh in full control.