Italians romp in Open Pairs II
The reigning World Open Pairs champions,
Claudio Nunes and Fulvio Fantoni, topped the 130
pair field in the final of the Wernher Open Pairs II.
They won Open Pairs II: Claudio Nunes and Fulvio Fantoni.
Nunes and Fantoni led for much of the final and
finished in front by more than two boards. Their
two session total was 2272.31, with a 55.72% in
the afternoon and a 65.45% in the evening
combined with a large carryover for finishing first
in the two-session qualifier. Top on a board was 64.
Nunes and Fantoni have previously won the
Open Board-a-Match Teams in Philadelphia in
2003, and Fantoni was a member of the winning
squad in the Mixed Board-a-Match Teams in Long
Beach in 2003.
Both players are frequent members of the
Italian national squad. They earned their World
Pairs title in Montreal in 2002.
In second with 2147.47 were Fred Stewart and Kit Woolsey, and one board back was the third-place
pair of Irina Levitina and Ilya Levitin with 2089.9
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Women's Champs: Kearse-Mitchell
Amalya Kearse and Jacqui Mitchell, winners of
the Women’s Pairs.
In a feat they last performed 33 years ago in
1971, longtime partners Amalya Kearse and Jacqui
Mitchell have won the Women’s Pairs. This is the
second victory for Kearse in the contest, but it’s the
fourth for Mitchell who has won previously with
Gail Greenberg (twice) and with the late Judy
Tucker. Mitchell also has several second-place
finishes in the Women’s Pairs, the first of which
occurred in 1962 playing with Betty Kaplan.
Mitchell and Kearse were World Women’s
Pairs champions in 1986.
Mitchell was inducted into the ACBL Hall of
Fame in 2003. Kearse has been elected to the Hall
of Fame for 2004, and will be inducted at the
Summer NABC in New York.
Kearse and Mitchell scored 66.14% in the
afternoon and 62.85% in the evening to post a final
score (with carryover) of 1368.9.
In second with 1242.18 were Cynthia
Balderson and Carole Miner of Minnesota.
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Nickell stunned by
Schwartz rally, loses in OT
Schwartz to face Jacobs
The top-seeded Nick Nickell squad had built up
a 53-IMP lead after three quarters of play against
their opponents led by Richard Schwartz in their
Vanderbilt semifinal match. Schwartz returned
from the dead in the last quarter, picking up exactly
53 IMPs to tie the match.
In the subsequent eight-board
playoff, Schwartz outscored Nickell 18–16 to
win the contest by 2 IMPs.
Final score: Schwartz
159, Nickell 157.
In the other semifinal bracket, the #2 seed
captained by George Jacobs kept Jim Mahaffey’s
squad at arm’s length the entire match, winning it
121–105.
Jacobs will take on Schwartz in today’s 64-
board final.
Schwartz’s recovery in the last quarter against
Nickell was witnessed by hundreds of online
kibitzers.
The final deal of the set saw Schwartz
team member Michael Becker double a non-vulnerable
partscore to collect an extra 50 points
and a subsequent 2 IMPs to tie the match.
| Nickell |
60 |
86 |
134 |
141 |
157 |
| Schwartz |
15 |
41 |
81 |
141 |
159 |
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| Jacobs |
32 |
66 |
96 |
121 |
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| Mahaffey |
16 |
57 |
61 |
105 |
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