5th HCL BRIDGE TOURNAMENT
16th to 19th August 2007
 
The 5th All India HCL Bridge Tournament with total prize money of approximately Rupees 10 Lacs (~$25,000) was held at Hotel Radisson, NOIDA, India from 16th to 19th August 2007, under the auspices of Bridge Federation of India.
 
The Tournament had 2 events - the Team of Four event for the “Naresh Tandan Trophy” and the Open Pairs event for the “Neena Bonerjee Trophy”.
 
The tournament broke its old record of 70 participating teams in the team of four event, with 73 teams from all parts of India along with DATA STEEL & CANDYLAND teams from Karachi, Pakistan taking part in this year’s Team of Four event. A combined India-Pak team BEEZEE also participated in the tournament.
 
Dhampur Sugar Mills, Formidables, Tolani Shipping, Shri Radhey, J.P. Goenka, Alok Daga, Shree Cement, Texan Aces, Wellknit and Manyavar were some of the top Indian teams which participated in this prestigious tournament.
 
Team of Four Event for “Naresh Tandan Trophy”:
 
Round Robin Stage:
 
The event comprised of 10 rounds of round robin (each 10 boards) resulting in the top 8 teams to qualify for the quarterfinals. At the end of first day (after 6 rounds), KHANDELWAL, comprising of Rajeev Khandelwal, Himani Khandelwal, N.K. Gupta & Sandeep Thakral led the event with 128 VPs. MANYAVAR (Raju Tolani, Ajay Khare, Rajesh Dalal, Anil Padhye) & J.P. GOENKA (J.P. Goenka, Badal Das, S.N. De Sarkar, Sumit Mukherjee, Amarnath Banerjee, Debbrata Majumder) shared the second place with 118 VPs. Shri Cement (114), Shri Radhey (113), Pushpak (113), Maheshwari (112), PBA-I & Dhampur Sugar Mills (110) held the 4th to 9th positions respectively.
 
After playing 4 more rounds on the second day, SHREE CEMENT Team (Manas Mukherjee, Rana Roy, Subroto Saha, Subir Majumdar & Bivas Todi) with 194 VPs, topped the 10 rounds - Round-Robin stage, to finalize the quarter-finalists. KHANDELWAL (Rajeev Khandelwal, Himani Khandelwal, N.K. Gupta & Sandeep Thakral) with 190 VPs were second. The quarter finalists were:
 
1 SHREE CEMENT - 194 VPs
2 KHANDELWAL - 190 VPs
3 J.P. GOENKA - 184 VPs
4 MANYAVAR - 184 VPs
5 TEXAN ACES - 181 VPs
6 MAHESHWARI, ALLAHABAD - 180 VPs
7 CANDYLAND - 173 VPs
8 SHREE RADHEY - 172 VPs (-1) Penalty
 
The teams had the right to choose their opponents as per the priority of their ranking in the round robin stage. The Quarterfinal line up was:
 
1 SHREE CEMENT Vs. MAHESHWARI, ALLAHABAD
2 KHANDELWAL Vs. CANDYLAND
3 J.P. GOENKA Vs. SHREE RADHEY
4 MANYAVAR Vs. TEXAN ACES
 
Formidables, Dhampur Sugar Mills, Tolani Shipping, Wellknit, Alok Daga & DATA STEEL (Karachi) were some of the top teams who did not qualify for the quarterfinals.
 
The final team rankings in the Team of Four event were as follows:
 
RANK
TEAM NAME
VPs
RANK
TEAM NAME
VPs
1
 SHREE CEMENT
194
38
 KAMLESH GUPTA'S IV
150
2
 KHANDELWAL
190
39
 CEN. SEC. CLUB - A
149
3
 MANYAVAR
184
40
 RUKMA
149
4
 J.P. GOENKA
184
41
 BOAT HOUSE CLUB
148
5
 TEXAN ACES
181
42
 SECL
148
6
 MAHESHWARI
180
43
 JADON JANA
148
7
 CANDY LAND
173
44
 DR. NANDA'S
147
8
 SHRI RADHEY
172
45
 A.K. UPADHYAY'S
147
9
 ALOK DAGA'S IV
171
46
 NEST INN, CHENNAI
147
10
 FORMIDABLES
170
47
 COLONELS
146
11
 PBA - I
169
48
 MAYA MEERA SNEHA - I
143
12
 ACES(on Tie-break)
168
49
 DEHRADUN
143
13
 TOLANI SHIPPING
168
50
 SAMNA
140
14
 ARNAB'S IV, VARANASI
166
51
 ALIGARH BLUES
140
15
 CEN. SEC. CLUB - B
166
52
 DR. ASHA SURANA
139
16
 WELLKNIT
165
53
 RAINBOW
139
17
 SOUMITRA - 'B'
165
54
 RAJJAN's, ALLAHABAD
138
18
 K.K. NEOGI's IV
163
55
 PBA - II
138
19
 DHAMPUR SUGAR MILLS
162
56
 BEEZEE
135
20
 DATA STEEL
161
57
 NOIDA FOUR
135
21
 MAYA MEERA SNEHA - II
158
58
 A.R. DAS's IV, W. BENGAL
134
22
 FRIENDS
158
59
 JIGNESH
132
23
 CHINMOY'S IV
158
60
 KUMKUM's IV
132
24
 CHINMOY'S IV
157
61
 GLITZ
130
25
 KABRA'S
157
62
 SOUMITRA - 'A'
127
26
 PUSHPAK
156
63
 COUPLES
125
27
 AMANORA
156
64
 ENGINEERS
124
28
 RADHESHYAM GUPTA
155
65
 SOOSHA
121
29
 SML
154
66
 AJAY 'FOUR' GWALIOR
120
30
 GUPTA'S, BANGALORE
154
67
 GREY TIGERS
120
31
 AZURE
154
68
 BATRAS
117
32
 WEAROLOGY
153
69
 ORION
115
33
 FORTHCOMING
152
70
 IOCL
114
34
 SIDDIQUE
152
71
 TORPEDOES
114
35
 PANKAJ MEHTA , MORADABAD
151
72
 CLUB KINGS
112
36
 PURIS
151
73
 LUCKY BILASPUR
108
37
 PATRIOTS
150
 
 
Quarterfinal Stage:
 
In the 3*14 boards Quarter Finals SHREE CEMENT beat Maheshwari, Allahabad team (Govind Prasad Agarwal, Sushil Agarwal, I.K. Agarwal, B.N. Rastogi, A.K. Sinha & Kr. Vijayanand Singh) by 43 IMPs; KHANDELWAL beat CANDYLAND team from Karachi, Pakistan (Masood Mazhar, Muhammed Ismail, Mubashir Puri, Hamid Mohiuddin, Khalid Mohiuddin, Sapan Desai) by 68 IMPs; J.P. GOENKA beat SHREE RADHEY team from Mumbai (V.M. Lal, R.G. Bhiwandkar, Jitu Solani, Ajit Chakradeo) by 24 IMPs and MANYAVAR beat TEXAN ACES (G. Venkatesh, K. Krishnakumar, P. Sridhar, S. Sunderram, J.M. Shah, Sandeep Karmarkar) by 25 IMPs. The scores:
 
Table #
Team Name
Vs
Team Name
Boards
TOTAL
        C/O 1-14 15-28 29-42 Pen  
1
 SHREE CEMENT
Vs
 MAHESHWARI, ALLAHABAD 0-0 40-04 20-30 30-13 0-0 90-47
2
 KHANDELWAL
Vs
 CANDYLAND 8-0 19-13 55-12 28-17 0-0 110-42
3
 J.P. GOENKA
Vs
 SHREE RADHEY 9-0 34-34 11-07 25-14 0-0 79-55
4
 MANYAVAR
Vs
 TEXAN ACES 0-0 30-26 34-14 50-49 0-0 114-89
 
Semi-final Stage:
 
The Semi final line up was: J.P. Goenka Vs. KHANDELWAL & SHREE CEMENT Vs. MANYAVAR.
 
In the first of the 3*16 boards semi-final, SHREE CEMENT (Manas Mukherjee, Rana Roy, Subrata Saha, Subir Majumdar, Bivas Todi) beat Manyavar (Raju Tolani, Ajay Khare, Rajesh Dalal, Anil Padhye) by 14 IMPs. In the second semi-final, J.P. Goenka (J.P. Goenka, Badal Das, Shib Nath Dey Sarkar, Sumit Mukherjee, Amarnath Banerjee, Debbrata Majumdar) beat KHANDELWAL (Rajeev Khandelwal, Himani Khandelwal, N.K. Gupta & Sandeep Thakral) by 1 IMP. The scores:
 
Table #
Team Name
Vs
Team Name
Boards
TOTAL
        C/O 1-16 17-32 33-48 Pen  
1
 SHREE CEMENT
Vs
 MANYAVAR 6-0 26-45 32-19 38-24 0-0 102-88
2
 J.P. GOENKA
Vs
 KHANDELWAL 0-8 45-24 23-44 55-44 2-0 121-120
 
Team of Four Final:
 
It was J.P. GOENKA Vs. SHREE CEMENT in the 4*16 boards FINALS of Team of Four event, with SHREE CEMENT having a carry over of 4 IMPs in the finals. Every body was eager to know whether J.P. Goenka’s team, which had won this event consecutively for the last 2 years, can make their hat-trick.
 
In the 4*16 boards final, SHREE CEMENT beat J.P. GOENKA by 57 IMPs. J.P. Goenka’s team won the first set by a solitary IMP but Shree Cement took the second set by 13 IMPs to lead by 16 IMPs at half way stage. In the third set Shree Cement completely overpowered the Goenka team and comfortably won the set by 29 IMPs to lead by 45 IMPs. They further added another 12 IMPs to comfortably win the final by 57 IMPs. The scores:
 
Team Name
Vs
Team Name
Boards
TOTAL
      C/O 1-16 17-32 33-48 49-64 Pen  
SHREE CEMENT
Vs
 J.P. GOENKA 4-0 50-51 28-15 51-22 41-29 0-0 174-117
 
Congratulations to the SHREE CEMENT team (Manas Mukherjee, Rana Roy, Subrata Saha, Subir Majumdar, Bivas Todi), who won the “Naresh Tandan Trophy” and the first prize of Rs. 2.5 Lacs. The loser J.P. Goenka team (J.P. Goenka, Badal Das, Shib Nath Dey Sarkar, Sumit Mukherjee, Amarnath Banerjee, Debbrata Majumdar) got Rs. 1.2 Lacs.
 
The final rankings:
 
1 SHREE CEMENT
2 J.P. GOENKA
3/4 MANYAVAR
3/4 KHANDELWAL
5/8 MAHESHWARI, ALLAHABAD
5/8 CANDYLAND
5/8 SHREE RADHEY
5/8 TEXAN ACES
 
photo
 
OPEN PAIRS Event for “Neena Bonerjee Trophy”
 
A record 160 pairs participated in the Open Pairs event. These pairs went through two grueling eliminations rounds.
 
Elimination – 1: 146 Pairs (excluding the qualified pairs for the T-4 event) participated in the first elimination round. They were put in six sections and after playing 2 sessions of 22 boards each, 63 qualified Pairs went through to the 2nd elimination round. The toppers in their respective sections were:
 
Combined Section A & B (50 Pairs)
 
NS1: Amarjit Wadhawan – Paresh Gupta 541.83
NS2: Tapas Mukherjee – K. Bhattacharya 537.29

EW1: Sourendra Dutt – S.N. Chander 569.17
EW2: Sunil Bhatia – Ashok Bedi 535.89
 
Combined Section C & D (48 Pairs)
 
NS1: Maj. S.K. Hooda–Rashid-ul-Ghazi 594.89
NS2: Sunit Chokshi – K.R. Venkatraman 574.41

EW1: S. Roy – P. Roy 574.13
EW2: C.S. Majumdar – S. Basak 529.06
 
Combined Section E & F (48 Pairs)
 
NS1: Kamal Roy – Aloke Sadhu 549.00
NS2: Ravi Batra – Sham Sharma 546.50

EW1: Bharti Dey – Alok Daga 531.00
EW2: R.C. Consul – J.B. Sengupta 508.50
 
Elimination – 2: The 63 qualifiers were joined in the 2nd elimination round by the 12 losing quarterfinalist pairs of the team event. The 75 pairs were put into 3 sections and played a 2-session (22 boards each) elimination round from which the top 13 NS & 13 EW pairs qualified for the Pairs Finals.
 
After the first session R. Sridharan – Suhas Vaidya (75.40%) and Tapas Mukherjee – K. Bhattacharya (63.44%) were leading in the North-South & East-West positions respectively. The 24 qualifiers to the finals were:
 
North-South
East-West
1 R. Sridharan – Suhas Vaidya 739.42 1 Deepak Santra – D. Bose 692.85
2 Subhash Gupta – Rajeshwar Tewari 678.10 2 Dibyendu Das – Bhaskar Ganguly 654.53
3 Amarjit Wadhwan – Paresh Gupta 673.18 3 I.K. Agarwal – Sushil Agarwal 653.08
4 S. Sunderram – P. Sridhar 671.87 4 Ashim K Ghosh – K.P. Chatterjee 652.60
5 Dr. S. Sengupta – D. Shee 671.61 5 Tapas Mukherjee – K. Bhattacharya 650.62
6 Masood Mazhar – Hamid Mohiuddin 656.91 6 C.S. majumdar – S. Basak 646.20
7 Uttam Gupta – R.C. Srikrishan 652.55 7 Kamal Roy – Aloke Sadhu 638.94
8 Archie Sequeira – Arun Bapat 634.01 8 Sudhir Aggarwal – Vinod Sharma 638.12
9 V.K. Mutreja – Sudhir Nagpal 618.44 9 A.B. Chakraborty – Sanat K Saha 636.44
10 B.N. Parasrampuria – Swapan K Deo 608.16 10 Sunit Chokshi – K.R. Venkatraman 636.06
11 A.K. Sinha – B.N. Rastogi 607.71 11 A.K. Mukherjee – Yu Rong 634.93
12 Maj. S.K. Hooda – Rashid-ul-Ghazi 604.54 12 K. Nandi – S. Dutta 625.26
13 S. Lahiri – S. Ganguly 603.23 13 Sudhir Chaudhari – P.D. Joshi 623.60
 
The qualifiers were joined by the four losing semi-finalists pairs and 2 pairs of Sponsor’s quota to constitute the final 32 for the FINALS.
 
Open Pairs Final: The 32 Pairs played 2 boards against each other in the 2-session all-play-all final.
 
The leaders at the end of 1st session (32 boards with top on a board 15) were:
 
1 Ashim Kumar Ghosh – K.P. Chatterjee 291.29 (60.69%)
2 Uttam Gupta – R.C. Srikrishan 274.25 (57.14%)
3 A.K. Sinha – B.N. Rastogi 274.21 (57.13%)
4 Raju Tolani – A. Khare 273.50 (56.98%)
5 Archie Sequeira – Arun Bapat 272.75 (56.82%)
6 Mrs. Kiran Nadar – B. Satyanarayana 272.71 (56.81%)
7 Sunit Chokshi - K R Venkatraman 269.29 (56.10%)
8 R. Sridharan – Suhas Vaidya 264.79 (55.16%)
 
S. Sunderram – P. Sridhar scored an excellent 60.22% score in the 2nd session (30 boards) to win the open pairs event for “Neena Bonerjee Trophy” and the first prize of Rs. 1.0 Lacs. Mrs. Kiran Nadar – B. Satyanarayana who were fourth at the end of first session had to be satisfied with the second rank and a prize of Rs. 60,000/-.
 
The final ranking:
 
1 S. SUNDERRAM - P SRIDHAR 529.79 17 DEEPAK SANTRA - D BOSE 478.36
2 Mrs. Kiran Nadar - B. Satyanarayana 529.21 18 Tapas Mukherjee - K Bhattacharya 470.07
3 C S Majumdar - S Basak 520.71 19 A B Chakraborty - Sanat K. Saha 465.79
4 A.K. Sinha - B N RASTOGI 515.21 20 S Lahiri - S GANGULY 460.43
5 Raju Tolani - A Khare 509.00 21 I K AGARWAL - SUSHIL AGARWAL 452.75
6 Sunit Chokshi - K R Venkatraman 508.29 22 TC Pant - D Mutreja 452.43
7 Archie Sequeira - Arun Bapat 498.75 23 K NANDI - S DUTTA 437.71
8 K K ROY - A SADHU 494.07 24 A K MUKHERJEE - Yurong 436.50
9 R Sridharan - Suhas Vaidya 492.79 25 V.K Mutreja - Sudhir Nagpal 435.57
10 Amarjit - Paresh Gupta 489.86 26 Dibyendu Das - Bhaskar Ganguly 429.57
11 N.K. Gupta - Sandeep Thakral 489.75 27 Dr S Sengupta - D Shee 425.43
12 Ashim Kumar Ghosh - K P Chatterjee 487.79 28 Sudhir Aggarwal - Vinod Sharma 417.43
13 R Dalal - A Padhey 485.21 29 Masood Mazhar – Hamid Mohiuddin 399.07
14 Subhash Gupta - Rajeshwar Tewari 482.43 30 R. Khandelwal - Himani Khandelwal 384.43
15 UTTAM GUPTA - R C SRIKRISHAN 479.75 31 Sudhir Chaudhari - P D Joshi 379.14
16 B N Parasrampuria - Swapan Kumar Deo 478.64 32 Maj. S.K. Hooda - Rashid Ul Ghazi 370.07
 
CONSOLATION PAIR EVENTS
 
44 Pairs participated in the Consolation pair event held on 18th afternoon for non-qualifiers. There were total 8 prizes totalling Rs. 16,200. The winners were:
 
1. P.C. Gupta – D.K. Tewari (Rs. 5000)
2. Mrs. Asha Sharma – D.P. Sharma (Rs. 4000)
3. S. Chatterjee – Rajjan Agarwal (Rs. 3000)
4. Montu Mukherjee – R. Roy (Rs. 2000)
5. Mrs. Asha Surana – R.S. Jasuja (Rs. 1000)
6. H.K. Singh – Manish Jaiswal (Rs. 600)
7. N.R. Bhattacharya–R. Roychoudhary (Rs. 400)
8. R.P. Narain – R.K. Aneja (Rs. 200)
 
The famous cricketer TIGER – Nawab of Pataudi was the chief guest for the prize distribution function, which was also graced by Mr. Shiv Nadar, the HCL supremo.