LAHORE

Hold Them team clinched the 14th Balijee International Bridge Championship title here at the bridge tables of Lahore Gymkhana on Wednesday.
The event was organised in memory of Balijee (M Iqbal). Hold Them team, comprising Hasnat Mehmood, Uzair Ahmed Kamal, Umar Aslam and Arsalan Mehmood from Islamabad, came up with magical moves to beat strong teams like Karachi Silver, ACES, JORDAN 1 and Islamabad Greens as they managed to score 135.87 points.
SAGA, comprising Ghalib Bandesha, Assad Maqbool, Nadir Ali and Col Assad from Karachi, also played consistently and compiled a total of 127.51 points to finish as runners-up. Team Kamran, comprising Azhar Hamid, Shauq Hussain, Kamal Ibahim, Imran Abedi, Parvez Mirza and Masood Akhter from Lahore, secured third slot while Izzo team of Jahangir Ahmed, Izzat Khalil, Farooq Alvi and Abdul Khaliq of Lahore, were leaders at the end of five sessions on Tuesday but they suffered a few set backs and ended up in fourth position with 115.04 points.
Aijaz Ahmad of Yummy Milk Products and his sister Mrs Tahira Nasir superbly hosted the event and hoped to conduct next events in a better way.
Maj Gen Sardar Tariq, GOC 10 Div, graced the occasion as chief guest and distributed prized among the top performers. World Bridge Federation (WBF) senior vice president Mazhar Jaffery, Azwer ul Haq of Karachi, ladies team from Jordan, Mian Misbahur Rehman and prominent bridge players were also present there.