Daily Times

LAHORE: The 15th Balijee International Bridge Championship moved into the third round at the Lahore Gymkhana here on Friday. While the team event commenced yesterday and would continue on Saturday and Sunday to decide the champions for this year, the pairs’ event came to an end after three sessions and 72 boards with the ultimate winners Sheikh Abdul Muqeet, popularly known as the Lone Ranger, and his partner Wajahat Ali Suri of Karachi providing moments that were brilliance enriched. Certainly during the pairs’ event their consistency had 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 had been filled with awesome moves by combinations like Asad Maqbool and Ghalib Bandaisha, Javed Khalid and Saeed Akhter, and Mirza Shauq Hussain combining with the indomitable Indian star Sappan Desai, and other top pairs of Karachi like Tehseen Ghaeewala and Rahid ul Ghazi, Mubashir Puri and Junaid, and not to forget experts like Parvez Mirza and Imran Abidi and Hasan Askari and Khalid Mohiuddin. However, no matter how well they combined the spins from the table of the winners Muqeet and Wajahat were always a crushing force for the opponents. 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 team event kicked off at 3:00 pm and amongst the 20 teams contesting, playing members of at least 10 teams have international exposure who will be flaunting their skills over the next two days. With steady nerves, master artists like Javed Khalid, Rashid ul Ghazi, Pervez Mirza and Hasan Askari will be restoring enough competitive life to this championship. Fireworks are also expected from players like Ahsan Quereshi, Nauman Butt, Malik Ghias, Shauq Hussain, Masood Mazhar, Tahir Abbas and Khurshid Hadi. 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, Umair Kausar and Mohammed Asif Sheikh in full control.

The pairs who attained top 10 positions:

1: Wajahat Ali Suri and Sheikh Abdul Muqeet 62.91 pts

2: Mirza Shauq Hussain and Sappan Desai 61.46

3: Assad Maqbool and Ghalib Bandesha 60.42

4: Fatima Raza and Rubina Agha 59.49

5: Tehsin Gheewala and Rashid ul Ghazi 59.29

6: Javed Khalid and Saeed Akhter 59.27

7: Niaz Hussain and Qamar S Kiani 56.85

8: Khalid Mohiuddin-Hassan Askari 56.17

9: Shahid Rafique-M Shafiq 56.04

10: Ahsan Javed Qureshi and Ghias A Malik 54.86.