April 9, 2003	Wednesday	Safar 6, 1424

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KARACHI, April 8: Allana demonstrated superb hands and with 130 Victory Points (VPs) grabbed the Super Marathon Bridge Championship which concluded at Aslam Memorial Hall on Monday.

Experienced Allana comprising Rehman Allana, Jan-e-Alam Fazli, Sultan Siddiqui, Rashid Jafer and Tehsin Gheewala were enjoying very safe position with 79 VPs at the halfway mark despite losing their second round match to contemporaries Multi.

However, in the last three rounds, the settled their score against other hopefuls like Candyland 18-12, Raees 16-14 and finally registered overwhelming victory against Lipton on easy terms.

Allana scored 130 VPs for the top berth, It may be recalled that it became an hat-trick for Rashid Jafer-Sultan Siddiqui pair since they were in Patron I, which team won first Super Marathon in September, then again in December they were the member of Allana and competed hat-trick in this event.

Giants made slow progress but never disappointed their admirers. The team also scored 130 VPs, since they had lost the fourth round match to Allana, according to the rules of the game, they were placed at runners-up position.

In the sixth round match against Multi they had the draw, but made all out efforts in the last two rounds winning by maximum points 25-05 against Jamal and Bridge Warriors.

Multi claimed third prize with a score of 124 VPs, Having all the international famed players, it lost to Lipton, the winner of Alcatel and runners-up of Sharjah Bridge Championship, but in the last three rounds they drew on level terms with Giants, lost narrowly to Candyland and outpaced Raees 23-07 in the last round.

Immediately after registering a convincing win against Giants in the opening encounter. Candyland had three bad sessions against Bridge Warriors 13-17, Raees 14-16 and Lipton 11-19, when Askari joined the team in the last three sessions and they played with their regular pairs, Candyland had no difficulty in winning three matches from Allana 18-12, Multi 16-14 and outright win against Jamal 25-05.

The underdogs Raees IV gave superb performance in the round robin, They finished fifth with 109 VPs, In the last three rounds they lost to Lipton 14-16, did better against Multi- 16-14 and became victim of opponent’s aggressive bidding and dummy play losing 7-23 VPs.

Lipton became the last qualifiers. Giving excellent performance till the last three rounds when they won by 14 IMP from Raees, shared 30 VPs, equally with Bridge warriors, However could not control the onslaught of Allana’s team in the last round, conceding,maximum 25 VPs.

Following are the teams final standing for the second phase of the national bridge trials and their combinations to select Pakistan team for BFAME and for the World championship.

Allana-130 VPs: Rehman Allana, Jane Alam Fazli, Sultan Siddiqui, Rashid Jafer, Tehsin Gheewala, Sarfraz Khan.

Giants 130 VPs: Masud Saleem, Masud Mazhar, Maj (Retd). Zaidi, Hasan Jawad, Yousuf Talpur.

Multi 124 VPs: Tahir Masud, Rashidul Ghazi, Amin Hakee, Javed Ahmed, Shahin Iqbal, Mohsin Chandna.

Candyland 119 VPs: Muhammad Ismail, Imran Jaka, Ziaullah Baig, Khalid Mohiuddin, Hamid Mohiuddin, Hasan Askari.

Raees 109 VPs: Raees Ahmed, Anwer Kemal, Ghulam Mohammad, Jamal Nizami, Naved Anjum.

Lipton 100 VPs: M.A. Ansari, Tariq Rasheed Khan, Abdul Khaliq, Nasir Raza Khan. Sattar Cochinwala.—APP