The Pre-quarter finals (4 * 10 boards) of the GOLD & SILVER event were played yesterday.
In GOLD event, on table-1, Team MAXIMUS from Bangladesh beat Team ARUN JAIN by 48 IMPs. On table-2 & 3, Team RUSSIA & Team TEXAN ACES outclassed their opponents beating them by a huge margin of 104 & 188 IMPs respectively.
On Table-4, Team SLAMMERS surprised everyone defeating the high ranking team PODRAM by 31 IMPs. PODRAM started badly losing the first set by 34-4, and lost another 10 when they lost the 2nd set by 31-21. PODRAM recovered to gain 6 IMPs (21-15) in 3rd set and with last set to start, had a deficit of 34 IMPs. They could gain only 3 IMPs in 4th set to lose by 31 IMPs.
The table 5 to 8 saw good battle amongst the teams. On table 5, FORMIDABLES beat BEDIS by a mere 10 IMPs. On table-6, the British team LESLIE was leading by 69-60 after 3 sets but then kudos to team MONICA JAJOO, who came back to take the 4th set by 31-18 to win the match by a mere 4 IMPs (91-87). On table-7, SHREE CEMENT easily beat MAYA MEERA SNEHA by 41 IMPs and in the match on table-8, after a tough battle SOLARIS beat ARISTOS by 19 IMPs (100-81), ARISTOS making a great comeback after losing the 1st set by 48-0.
In the Silver event, team PRAYAS won narrowly to TARUN by 10 IMPs; DR. SSMC team outclassed TBA by 37 IMPs, though TBA tried hard to recover well from a huge deficit winning the last set by 44 IMPs; TALLURI comfortably beat SNAPDRAGON by a huge margin of 90 IMPs; JAGORON who were ranked lower than their opponents in the league defeated opponent PRABHAV by a huge margin of 118 IMPs; GANGA GOMTI easily defeated SURPRISE by 90 IMPs; DR. SANGHI beat GREAT ROYALS in a tough match by a mere 17 IMP; SAHYADRI had an easy time against MG SPORTS winning by 44 IMPs and In the last match JIYA has the better of SPARTANS by 42 IMPs.
Today the Quarter final matches (4*10 Boards) will be played. The line up of the QF matches will be:
The kibitzers can watch the broadcast of the QF matches on the website kibitz.realbridge.online. It will be a half an hour delayed broadcast to take care of the security of boards.
GOOD LUCK TO ALL THE TEAMS FOR THEIR QUARTER-FINAL MATCHES.
The second major event of the HCL Championships 2021 – the OPEN MATCH POINT PAIRS will also commence today. A total of 260 pairs are participating in the event. The event will have 3 elimination rounds, each of 2 sessions of 24 boards followed by the Finals to be played on the last day of the tournament on Sep 26.
Today the first elimination round will be played in which approximate 230 Pairs will play. After 2 sessions of this elimination round, nearly 50% pairs will qualify for the 2nd elimination round.
By T.C. Pant