Indian Railways triumph

MUMBAI, MAY 18: Indian Railways A clinched the All-India Bridge Tournament, organised by the Western Railway Sports Association.In the fi...

MUMBAI, MAY 18: Indian Railways A clinched the All-India Bridge Tournament, organised by the Western Railway Sports Association.

In the final played over four sessions of 14 boards, the team from Calcutta outplayed Mumbai-outfit Tolani, 140-75 IMPs for the whopping first prize of Rs One lakh. Indian Railways comprising of Saroj Bhattacharjee, Manas Mukherjee, Snehasis Roy, Sujit Bhattacharjee and Amarnath Banerjee, scored over the summer National champions.

Tolani, comprising R A Agrawal, G Biswas, Deepak Pradhan, Bapat, Arvind Vaidya and P Swami in a somewhat surprising verdict. They dominated throughout, winning the four sessions 39-31, 35-6, 44-19, 22-19.

A total of 27 teams were in the fray for this event, carrying a total prize-money of Rs 3 lakhs and organised as past of the centenary celebrations of the Western Railway Headquarters building.

Earlier, in the semi-finals, Indian Railways and Tolani pulled off last minute coups to make the title grade. Trailing their rivals, Poddar and Khandelwalby four and 14 IMPs respectively, after two sessions, the two made good in the last session to set up a tough title clash. Tolani, made light of an eight IMPs carryover and deficit by winning the final session 35-14 to emerge overall 91-84 winners.

In the other semi-final, Poddar were leading Indian Railways A by four IMPs, but lost the last session 6-42, to lose 55-87.

In the pairs event, the duo of Badal Das and S Sarkar emerged on top with 301.50 IMPs and took home the winner8217;s purse of Rs 30,000. S Choksi and K Anklesaria finished second with 291.5 and had to be content with Rs 20,000. Twenty-four pairs played each other over two boards, spread into two sessions of 24 and 22 boards.

Final Results

Story continues below this ad

Indian Railways A bt Tolani 170-45; Semi-finals: Indian Railways bt Poddar 87-55; Tolani bt Khandelwal Tubes 91-84.

Top Ten Finishers Pairs: Badal Das/ S Sarkar 301.50; S Choksi/ K Ankalesaria 291.50; B De/ T Adhya 288.50; A Padhye/ K Misra 279; Dalal/ Patel 265.50; JM Shah/J Solani 263.50; S Shirwarkar/ PK George 263.50; S Machhar/ Bharati Dey 2638217; P Shivdasani/ H Deora 262; P Dalavi/ P Hegde 262.