The World Wide Bridge Contest was held simultaneously at 291 bridge playing centers around the world with participation of 4011 pairs. In Lahore, the centre of activity was the Royal Palm Golf and Country Club bridge tables. The atmosphere was friendly and enabled some prominent Pakistanis to appear as accomplished performers. According to the playing format, the beauty of this form of play is that each pair competes against its opponents from all world centres and evaluation is made possible through the ECats System with results available as soon as the competition concludes and these results indicate participating pairs standing at the club level, the national level, Zone level and world level.
And at the conclusion of the two days bridge pairs contest, it was the Royal Palms pair of Tahir Abbas and Mirza Asfandyar, a teenager who captured the 41st position at the world level out of 4011 pairs, with a percentage of 65.34 and match points of 83,362. Another pair that managed the 60th slot was Ahsan Qureshi and Zia H. Naqvi with a percentage of 64.93 and 82,839 match points.
The top position at the world level was attained by the pairing of T. Vito and Petrelli of Italy with 74.52 percentage and 95,078 match points.
In the contest for achievements at the zonal level, Pakistan was placed in zone-4 out of eight zones and includes competitors from countries like Bangladesh, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Sri Lanka and India. At this level Royal Palms pair of Tahir Abbas grabbed the 5th slot and Ahsan Qureshi and Zia H Naqvi came 7th. The top position holder was the pair of Rex Perera and Baskaram of Sri Lanka with a percentage of 68.12 and 86, 909 match points.
At the national level the winning pair was Tahir Abbas and Mirza Asfandyar and the second position holder was Ahsan and Zia H Naqi. Other pairs who performed well are Sikandar Butt and Imran Karim and Jehangir Ahmed and Izzat Khalil. From amongst the ladies, the best performing pair was Qudsia Saeed and Fehmida who were 10th at the national level.
The club level top ones were Tahir Abbas and Asfandyar. In Lahore the contest was conducted by Ihsan Qadir and internationally acclaimed Bridge Tournament Director.