Indonesia's preparations for the 2001 Bermuuda Bowl received a further boost when their pair Hengky Lasut and Eddy Manoppo emerged champions in the Tolani International World Pairs Bridge Championship at The Retreat today. Lasut and Manoppo finished the 31-round competition with 862 victory points (VPs), a whopping 57 VPs ahead of the second-placed Chinese pair Cao Xueliang and Yang Lixin. Indonesia and China had finished 1-2 in the Team Championships held last week.Sweden's Magnus Lindkvist and Peter Fredien paid the price for two poor rounds in the end, which saw them losing to the Chinese in the penultimate round and then India's Jeroo Mango and Vinay Desai in the last round. The Swedes finished in third place with 792.The Indonesians received Rs 4.5 lakh, the Chinese Rs 2.75 lakh, while the Swedes had to settle for Rs one lakh.Among the Indian pairs, Dr Mukund Jagannathan and R Agarwal finished ninth with 660. KV Krishnamurthy and S K Iyengar with 650, while Ashok Ruia and J M Shah had their bestday yet to 15th spot, never making it past 25 on the first two days.Also failing to make an impact was the duo of Anil Padhye and Anand Mehta who failed to climb higher than the 18th spot, which they had occupied on Wednesday.Top positions:1 Hengky Lasut & Eddy Manoppo (Ina) 862 VPs; 2 Cao Xueliang & Yang Lixin (China) 805; 3 Magnus Lindkvist & Peter Fredian (Swed) 792; 4 Marek Szymanowski & Krzystof Martens (Poland) 764; 5 Shi Haojun & Dai Jianming (China) 748; 6 Cezary Balicki & Adam Zmudzinski (Poland) 735; 7 Denny Sacul & Franky Karwur (Ina) 721; 8 John Carruthers & John Mohan (Can) 696.
