Bengal win

KOCHI, April 21: Bengal pair Kamal Mukherjee and Subroto Saha, playing in tandem, won the Selected Pairs event and lifted the Agarwala Troph...

KOCHI, April 21: Bengal pair Kamal Mukherjee and Subroto Saha, playing in tandem, won the Selected Pairs event and lifted the Agarwala Trophy on the concluding day of the 29th Summer National Bridge Championships here.

The top pair to qualify from the second elimination, they slipped in the earlier rounds and were lowly placed. But on this day, there was nothing to stop them. All gears seemed to shift smoothly as they decimated their opponents from the 10th round onwards. At the end of the ninth round, they were second placed behind Andhra8217;s A Balram-K Suryanarayana, whom they met in the next round.

Their margin of victory was 18-12 VPs. Round 11 was a bye for which they were awarded the mandatory 17 VPs. They met J Prathihari-A Rout of Orissa in Round 12 and R Kini-N K Gupta in Round 13, both of whom they beat by identical margins of 21-9 VPs. The only pair to hold them, and that too in the last encounter, were state mates T Ghosh-T Mukherjee, which they shared 15-15. Their score of 270 VPs included thecarryover of seven and placed them well ahead of the Railways pair of S Bhattacharjee-N P Kabiraj, the overnight leaders.

Bhattacharjee-Kabiraj got a losing share of 14-16 VPs against R Shreedharan-R Tolani, the holders, in the 10th round. Two convincing victories of 24-6 against N Rajachandra-R Venkatesh of Karnataka and 20-10 against Maharastra8217;s R Bhiwandkar-A Lele, placed them second after 12 matches. Of the remaining three matches, one was a bye for 17 VPs and their team mates, M. Mukherjee-R. Roy and Shreedharan-Tolani, both held them to 16-14. Their aggregate of 258.8 VPs 2.8 C/o secured them the second position.

Holders, Maharastra8217;s R. Shreedharan-R. Tolani, had to be content with the third spot this time. Two comprehensive wins of 24-6 and 21-9 followed by a 18-12 victory brought them into striking range and a chance to retain the title. But their 14th round opponents, Balaram-Suryanarayana had other ideas and handed them a big 9-21 VP defeat to restrain their progress and chances before theyended their campaign with a 16-14 share against the other Andhra pair in the fray, K.V.S. Manian-Dr. A.N. Rao.

The performance of Maharastra8217;s, R. Bhiwandkar-A. Lele was creditable. Last to qualify and with no carryover they finished fourth with a total of 248 VPs. Tapan Ghosh-Tapas Mukherjee of Bengal took the fifth place just 04 VP ahead of Andhra8217;s A. Balaram-K. Suryanarayana. Their scores read 246.5 VPs 6.5 C/o and 246.1 VPs 5.1 C/o, respectively.

These six pairs are automatically seeded into the next year8217;s event.