Formidables win Team Event at 7th All India Bridge Championship

Commenting on their victory, Sumit Mukherjee, who has represented India in world Cups and other international tournaments many times, said, "We are happy to retain the championship we won last time here. All the teams here are very good. In the final we managed to do well. This would boost our spirit  as me along with Sagnik and Sayantan  would be playing for India at an international event in China later this month."

Formidables received a purse of Rs.1,20,000 for winning the title while  Team Arun Jain became richer by Rs. 80,000 for being runners up.

The Match Point Pairs final event was won by the duo of Arun Bapat and Swarnendu Banerjee while the title for the IMP Pairs went to Tapas Dasgupta and S K Mondal.

Formidables, who had to fight hard to beat Pradeep (58 - 45.3 IMPs) in the semi final last night, put up a much better show in the title clash.

Their players displayed a fine understanding as they were playing together for a long time.

Three of their campaigners - Sumit Mukherjee, Sayantan Kushari and Sagnik Roy - were also part of Railways team that won the National tChampionship in last January.

After both the teams started evenly scoring 8 IMPs each in the first session of the final, Formidables took a comfortable lead scoring 33 and 41 IMPs against 16 and 27 IMPs by Arun Jain in the second and third session respectively.

In the fourth session also, Formidables buttressed the lead further 41 IMPs aianst 23 by their rivals.

In the play off for the third and fourth position Team Pradeep beat  Bangur Cement by 98-61 IMPs.

West Bengal Bridge association President Vibhas Todi and Vice President Monica Jajoo presented the prizes and trophies to the respective winners.