Railways annexes trophy

By Bobby Sinha

KASAULI, APRIL 27. Railways represented by Vinod Sharma, Sany Bhattacharjee, Rama Ray, Manas Mukherjee, A.N. Banerjee and H. Hasan arrexed the T.P. Khosla Trophy, the symbol of supremacy in the inter-State bridge championship, defeating Maharashtra `A' (Deepak Poddar, M.P. Athawale, Amal Shah, Suhas Vaidya, C.P. Deshpande and B.G. Ogale) in the final of the team event by 64 IMP (174-110) here on Thursday.

Railways, which had an element of luck in its earlier wins, was the deserving champion at the all important end when Maharashtra, having a record number of nine wins, failed to strike form. Poddar's associates are no mean players but on the day they were incapable of striking form.

The 64 board final was played in four sessions of 16 boards each. Railways began with a carry over of six IMP. At the end of the first session Railways established a lead of 33 IMP. It added 27 IMP (54-27) in the first 16 boards. Maharashtra's major loss (10 IMP) was in a slam board when Railway bid a sitter small slam contract in club which Maharashtra played in a game contract in spade.

In the second session, which was marked by low scoring, Railways gained five IMP (24-19) increasing its lead to 38 IMP (84-46). In the third session Railway added another 17 IMP (49-32) increasing its lead to 55 IMP. In this session Maharashtra gave away 35 IMP in three boards which included missing another slam contract. With the last session to go the score board read 133-78 in favour of Railways.

The score in the last session was 41-32 in favour of Railways. In this session Dame Luck again favoured Railways in another Grand Slam contract.

With this win Railways, which was without a few of its star players like Kushari, Asim, Subir, S. Ray and A. Das, won the title for the fifth time. Its previous wins were in 1983 (Panaji, Goa), 1989 (Hyderabad), 1996 (Guwahati) and 1998 (Kochi).

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