Formidables bag prestigious Rui Gold Cup for Team Event in 61st Winter National Bridge Championship
Kolkata/IBNS: Former champions Formidables from Delhi, led by seasoned campaigner Kiran Nadar rose to the occasion and bagged the coveted Ruia Gold Cup as they outplayed city based Maharaja in the final of the team event in the 61st Winter National Bridge Championship at Netaji Indoor Stadium here Thursday.
In the title clash for the Gold Cup, Formidables totalled 115 IMPs against 58 IMPs by Maharaja.
The final ended after three rounds instead of scheduled four when Maharaja conceded the match at the end of third round as Formidables forced an unassailable lead by that time. Formidables earned a prize money of rupees one lakh while Maharaja, finishing as runners up, got rupees fifty thousand.
Title for the Ruia Silver Cup, meant for the lesser ranked player, went to Baneet, also from Kolkata who routed Talluri from Hyderabad by 121 IMPs – 45 Imps.
Commenting on their performance, happy skipper of Formidables Kiran Nadar said, "We are indeed very happy to lift the Ruia Gold Cup again though we have earned it several times earlier."
She termed the semi final clash agaisnt Indian Railways’A’ as the toughest one in this meet and complemented all her teammates – Bachiraju Satyanarayan, Rajeswar Tewari,Keyzad Anklesaria,, Sandeep Thakral, and Jaggy Sivdasani for providing fine support which guided their team to become champions.
Though Maharaja lost to a better opponents, reaching final was itself a fine feat since four of their players – Sudhir and Ganguly, Subir Mazumdar,Satyabarata Mukherjee and Abhijit Chakraborty had to play all the matches as among two other players in the team – one fell ill while the other had to be out of station for some emergency work.
In the playoff for third place in Ruia Gold Cup, a demoralised Indian Railways ‘A’ lost to Rampage scoring 55 IMPs agaisnt 79 IMPs by the latter.
The finals of Gold Cup saw Formidables forcing a big lead in the first round garnering 47 IMPs against 15 by Maharaja. Inspired with the big lead, Formidables kept up their pressure and buttressed the lead further in the second round scoring 45 IMPs against 24 by Maharaja. In the third round also, Formidable maintained a little lead making 23 IMPs agaisnt 19 by Maharaja.
In the third-place play off for Ruia Silver Cup, which was a clash between two Kolkata outfits, Atha Group ‘B’ defeated SETU by 82 IMPs to 38 IMPs.
Though Asian Games Gold medalist Pranab Bardhan‘s team lost in the quarter final of Gold Cup, he partnering V Ramesh Kumar won the Niranjan IMP Pairs ( Flight ‘A’ ) event topping the chart with 120.90 IMPs. P S Mukherjee and P Bera took the second spot with 91.90 IMPs and were floowed by Gautam Das and Shyama Prasad with 81.80 IMPs.
In Flight ‘B’ of Niranjan Pairs Ashoke Dey and Gobinda Saha emered best with 103 IMPs while Somnath Mitra and Apurba Bhattacharjee scored 102 IMPs to finish second. Aloke Daga and Manas Mukherjee came third in this event with 76 IMPs.
Shobha Bajoria and Kavita Khaitan, wife and daughter respectively of late Ashok Ruia, on whose memory the team event Gold Cup and Silver Cup are named, distributed the prizes and trophies to various winners of team event for Ruia Gold Cup and Silver Cup and Pairs event for Flight ‘A’ and ‘B’ categories of Niranjan Pair event.
Competitions for main Pairs event for Shree Cement Trophy and Mixed Pair Event are now being held.
(Reporting by Manik Banerjee)
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