MSO World: Bridge Articles

The Daily Bulletin from Anaheim, where the US Nationals have just reached their conclusion, reports: The team captained by Rose Meltzer won the Spingold Knockout Teams by a large margin, defeating the squad led by Roy Welland, 147-53.

Playing with Meltzer, of Los Gatos CA, were Kyle Larsen of San Francisco, Lew Stansby of Castro Valley CA, Alan Sontag of Gaithersburg MD, Chip Martel of Davis CA and Peter Weichsel, also of Los Gatos CA. The Welland team included Brad Moss of New York, Marc Jacobus of Las Vegas, Fred Gitelman of Toronto, and Magnus Lindkvist and Peter Fredin of Sweden.

For Meltzer, this victory is another feather in the cap for a squad that won the Transnational Teams in Bermuda and earned two second-place finishes in NABC events this year (including the Grand National Teams, Flight A here in Anaheim). Meltzer’s win is significant historically as well, since the last time a woman was a member of the win-ning Spingold squad was 1963. In that year Edith Kemp (now Freilich) won, playing with Russ Arnold, Harold Harkavy, Alvin Roth, Cliff Russell and William Seamon.

18 August

Life Master Pairs
Zia Mahmood and Michael Rosenberg topped the field in the first final session of the Life Master Pairs and never relinquished the lead in the second session to win the prestigious three-day event by two full boards.

They scored 1726.93 matchpoints (top on a board was 51) to outdistance the second-place pair of John Mohan and Sam Lev who posted a score of 1624.94. Mohan and Lev were the defending champions in the event.

This was the first win in an NABC pair event for Zia and Rosenberg as a partnership, although they each have multiple NABC wins with other partners.

Most recently, Zia won the 1999 Mixed Board-a-Match Teams playing with Karen McCallum, Lynn Baker and Matt Granovetter. In 1998, he won the Blue Ribbon Pairs playing with Howard Weinstein. Rosenberg's last victory in an NABC pair event came playing with Bob Hamman in the Blue Ribbon Pairs in 1993. Rosenberg was also a member of the winning Vanderbilt team in 1994. In third with a score of 1615.69 matchpoints were Eric Greco and Mike Passell.

18 August

All Trials during which United States representation in international events is decided will be run in an open format in the future. This regulation was passed by the Board of Directors last week. Previously teams wishing to compete in a Trials had to go through a review process before they either were accepted or rejected.

18 August

The team captained by Nick Nickell is taking aim at its seventh Spingold title in the last eight years. The team -- Nickell-Richard Freeman, Bob Hamman-Paul Soloway and Jeff Meckstroth-Eric Rodwell -- won the title in San Antonio last year, defeating John Onstott, Steve Beatty, Billy Eisenberg and Garey Hayden.

Nickell's all-star squad is the only team to win four consecutive Spingolds. Nickell, Freeman, Meckstroth, Rodwell, Hamman and Bobby Wolff won in Washington DC in 1993, San Diego in 1994, New Orleans in 1995 and Miami Beach in 1996. Hamman and Wolff ended their partnership in 1998 and Soloway joined the squad which won the 1998 Inter-national Team Trials plus the 1998 Spingold and the 1999 Spingold.