KARACHI, Dec 14: The first leg of open trials to pick five teams from Karachi for Bridge Federation of Asia and Middle East (BFAME) trials will be held at Aslam Memorial Hall here from Dec 25 to 28 , announced Pakistan Bridge Federation (PBF) on Tuesday.

Thirteen teams including Allana, Marathon, Data Steel, Havoc, Giants, Spectrum, EFU, Four Bidders, Mahmood-IV, Dynamo and Attackers will appear in the first phase of trials, secretary PBF Tariq Rasheed Khan said.

Five Karachi teams will later join two teams from Lahore and one from Islamabad to feature in the final round of trials to be held at the same venue from Jan 24 to 29, he said.

The selected team will represent Pakistan in the BFAME championship scheduled to be held at Dhaka, Bangladesh in April, he said. The same team will also represent the country in Bermuda Bowl Championship to be held in Portugal in November 2005, he added.

PBF secretary said the PBF had adopted more aggressive approach to select the best team. The format besides removing the element of luck in the selection of the team also determines which team performs well under stress, said Tariq Rasheed.

After the selection of the team a two-month long camp will be conducted in Karachi to provide top quality training to the team. Pakistan lost to India in the final of BFAME championship in Amman, Jordan last year. He said that besides India and Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bahrain, Indonesia, Syria and Jordan are main force in the region for the title. -APP