LAHORE: The 16th Balijee Bridge Championship featuring Pakistan’s star players started here at Lahore Gymkhana on Friday.

The first day of the four-day championship was reserved for the pairs event.

During the first session and 24 boards visible throughout the competition, the duo of Arsalan Mansoor and Maj Hasnat Mehmood (North South section) rallied to the front with a score of 63.28.

The remaining boards will be played on Saturday and the pairs event will conclude around mid-day.

Other pairs in North South section who performed admirably were Hamed Mohiuddin and Hassan Askari (with score of 59.38).

Lying at 59.27 is the pair of Anwer Gheewala and Ghulam Mohammed. A few more also look imposing and they are Humayun Khan and Qasim Qureshi (57.83), retired Maj Hasan Akhter Zaidi and Javed Ahmed Miran (57.81), Preeti Nihalani and Rekha Desai (55.15).

Interestingly, some international players of significance like Kemal Shoaib, Khurshid, Ahsan Javed Qur­eshi, Tehseen Gheewala and Mirza Shauq Hussain are lagging behind but can emerge in front through a forceful play. 58 pairs are vying for top position in the pairs event.

The fancied pairs in the East West Section include Asha Sharma and Avijit Chakvaborty (65.55), Fatima Raza and Rubinna Agha (61.88), Javed Khalid and Saeed Akhter (61.55), Anis-ur-Rehman and Anwar Mumtaz Kizilbash (60.24) and Yousaf Jan Mohammed and Imran Abedi (59.20).

Published in Dawn, March 24th, 2018