All India Shree Cement Bridge Championship: R1S5 and Magnum qualify for knock-out stage
Kolkata/IBNS: 'R1S5' from Kolkata and 'Magnum' from Delhi qualified for the knock-out stage securing first and second position respectively along with fourteen other teams as the eight -round swiss league of the team event ended on the second day of the 6th All india Shree Cement Bridge Championship (category one) at Biswa Bangla Convention Centre here on Friday.
Other teams to qualify for the last sixteen stage included strong contender Formidables, Dhampur Sugar, Mavericks,OCI Copper, Erni'S, Shree Cement, Arun Jain, Maya Meera Sneha, Bappa, Sarbeshwar, Hemant Jalan, Pradeep, Akanksha and Jhantu.
Noted teams which failed to make the cut are last year's champion Fenesta and India Women, who became champions in the women team event at recently concluded BFAME Championship at Lahore, Pakistan. While Fenesta earned 36th position , India Women finished 29th .
The team from Bangladesh - 'Bangladessh Green' also couldnot rise to the occasion and ended themselves at 57th spot.
R1S5 , represented by up coming Ritabrata Dutta, Dr. Sumit Bhowmik , Sanjib Basak, Suman Banerjee, Subhasree Basu and Soham Sarkar, who were at the fifth spot at the end of 5th round yesterday improved their performance considerably to leap frog themselves at the top after 8th round with a total of 111. 27 Victory Points (VPs).
Inaugural day's league leader Magnum also played well to make a close second with 110.96 VPs.
At the pre quarter finals R1S5 will play against Jhontu, Magnum will take on Sarbeshwar, OCI Copper will meet Bappa, Erni's will lock horn against Akanksha. In the other matches of the last sixteen will be between - Dhampur Sugar and Pradeep, Mavericks and Hemant Jalan, Shree cement and Maya Meera Sneha and Arun Jain will challenge Formidables.