World Bridge Services

Of all the many team events held annually around the world, the competition for the Nathan B. Spingold Trophy is among the most prestigious. The Bermuda Bowl or Rosenblum Cup may rate somewhat higher on the tournament food-chain, but those events require success in an arduous series of qualifying events in order to compete – and of course you're limited to teammates from your own country.

In the Spingold (and similarly in the Vanderbilt and the Reisinger) – anyone who can front up at the playing site, pony up a few hundred quid, remain in good standing with their own bridge organization, and stay on the right side of the authorities within the ACBL – anyone who can do that is free to enter and take a stab at the big time.

Winning a match or two (much less the seven victories required to actually win the trophy) is far from trivial, but – as we all know –

You gotta be in it to win it.

79 teams made up primarily of the world's top 200 players (more than half of that distinguished cohort was here competing) began a seven-day single-elimination tournament a week ago today. This year's favorites, listed by seed:

1. Wolfson
2. Fleisher
3. Zimmermann
4. Nickell

Wolfson

Jeff Wolfson began playing bridge as a teen back in New Jersey in the 1960's – of the several hundred bridge players who followed Michael Becker and Ron Rubin into the options industry (from the 1980's through the early 2000's, a majority of the top US tournament bridge players became professional options traders – the brain architecture required for success as an options trader is clearly similar to that required for success at bridge). Resettled from the east Coast into Chicago, urban legend maintains that Wolfson made more money in the options industry than anyone else from our tribe (bridge players, I mean).

Wolfson's squad won the event in 2025 and certainly they were thought to have a reasonable chance to repeat in 2026.

Wolfson sat opposite his long time partner, also a veteran of the Chicago option floor, Steve Garner. Native to Minnesota, but not very recently - Steve left there at least forty, if not fifty, years ago. The other two pairs in the top seed team were Yichao Chen - Yinghao Liu and Brian Platnick - Kevin Rosenberg.

Fleisher

Marty Fleisher was coming up in New Jersey bridge only a few years behind Wolfson – he has had monumental success in recent international championships, and his strong partnership with veteran high achiever Chip Martel places him at the very top of the sponsor–pro food chain. More important still, Marty has been consistently recruiting and retaining top talent – Mike Kamil, Joe Grue, Alfredo Versace, Thomas Bessis – this is where championships are won, and Fleisher is better at this than almost anyone else. Marty partners Chip Martel, another native midwesterner (Champaign-Urbana, a university town, less than 100 miles of Illinois highway from where I’m typing this now).

The other pairs in Marty’s very strong team are Thomas Bessis - Cedric Lorenzini, a youngish French pair that have been doing a ton of winning for at least ten years now, and Sjoert Brink - Bas Drijver. The top Dutch pair interestingly enough played a lot in Zimmermann’s teams.

Zimmermann

Pierre Zimmermann has made a huge mark on international bridge over the last 15 years, winning national (US) and international (European Championships and WBF events) with great frequency. While players on his teams have suffered multiple disruptions (lifetime expulsions, Scandinavian incarceration) Pierre keeps rolling along – too hard to represent France? Represent Monaco. Monaco becomes problematic? Let's move the operation to Switzerland.

A worthy three seed, with genuine winning chances in any event, Pierre has resumed playing with his favorite partner, Frederick Multon. As partners they’ve represented at least two, if not, three, countries - France (originally), Monaco (for a while) and now: Switzerland. Zimmermann’s team is completed by his regular pairs, Kalita - Klukowski and Kamil Nowak - Michal Nowosadski.

Nickell

Nick Nickell's squad is the winningest bridge team in American history – since 1990, they've won more Spingolds than anyone else. Currently in a rebuilding phase, they expected to compete in Minneapolis with a young Italian star, along with Nick's usual partner (since the death around 2010 of Nickell's long-time partner Richard Freeman) Ralph Katz – like Wolfson, another options trader who relocated to Chicago.

Events intervened, and Alan Sontag was called at the last minute to fly in and partner Weinstein (also a long-time option trader, not that you asked) – under this configuration, with half the players expecting to be off the team by next year's (2027) Spingold – the Nickell squad figured to underperform, but – you can never count them out.

Nick’s on his second partner in 30 years - Ralph Katz, one more veteran of the Chicago options floor. Word in the lobby bar says that Geoff Hampson and Eric Greco will be off the team by this time next year, after around 15 years and many national and international titles with the squad. Not so many in the last few years.

Round of 16

By the round of 16, all of the four top seeded teams remained – huge skew towards European players and mostly American clients.

In the 2026 Spingold you will find plenty of Dutch stars spread across various teams. Joris van Lankveld and Berend van den Bos. Playing for Cayne, they reached a nice slam against Zimmermann sitting north-south, but would they have bid it without being pushed a little?

Former World Champion Wubbo de Boer reports:

Joris’ pass was invitational to bid higher and because of his three small clubs Berend was happy to accept this invitation. Even a trump lead won’t beat the slam, because west will be caught in a red suit squeeze.

In the other room at the table with Danny Molenaar (west) and Tim Verbeek (east) the bidding was a little different:

Although it looks like E-W gave N-S two extra chances to bid the spade slam, they never would have since north had already passed 4♠︎, so he was not ever going to think that slam would be on.

The Round of 16 featured two seeded upsets. Zimmermann lost to Cayne, who were trailing by 38 IMPs with one quarter to play but won the final 15 boards 70-3. Nickell was defeated by Goodman 151-104. The closest match saw Wolfson overturn a 10-IMP deficit after three quarters to beat Vedanta Capital by 11 IMPs.

The quarter finals

In the quarters, Marty Fleisher's French, American and Dutch aggregation continued to advance comfortably. The team beat Amoils 141-104, while top seed Wolfson was defeated by a large margin, 195-105, by a team captained by Harrison Luba.

The next interesting play is from the match between Fleisher and Amoils, with “Bus Driver” in the south seat. The board has been rotated by half a turn for the reader’s convenience:

Fred Pollack (west) led the ♥︎4, which ran to Bas Drijver’s queen, east playing the ♥︎9. South’s next move was to cross to dummy with the ♠︎A to play a club to his 10. Pollack won with the queen - a serious attempt to hide his jack. West couldn't continue hearts, and he exited with his last spade. The ♠︎9 forced declarer to win the queen. Drijver continued with a third round of spades, whereupon west had to discard a diamond. Pitching a card in any other suit would give declarer an easy path to nine tricks. Once spades failed to break, declarer continued with a heart to his ace before turning his attention to the diamond suit. When he played a small diamond, west went up with the ace to continue with the queen. Drijver won this trick in dummy with the king and finally started testing the clubs: after a club to the king and a third club to his ace, the position was:

Now Drijver played the fourth club from dummy, endplaying west, who had to bring a trick to the ♥︎J. Not so difficult; I hear you thinking from your lazy chair? Well, Drijver was the only one in the quarter finals who made the contract!

The semifinals

In the semi-finals, Goodman trounced the youthful Luba Team (Kaplan-Luba, Lien-Kolesnik). It appears that this week former Nickell player Bobby Levin, playing on the Goodman team, like the Elwood sibling in “The Blues Brothers,” is “on a mission from God.” Fleisher won even more decisively against Street, forcing a withdrawal at the three quarter’s mark, at the score of 134-4! That must be a record, in 45 boards.

This deal from the third segment illustrates that it helps to be lucky, as well as good.

Drijver opened the north hand with 1NT, after which east doubled to show a five-card minor and a four-card major. Brink, south, must have had a moment of anxiety but passed in the hope that west would bid. West did indeed: he asked for the minor with 2♣︎, which immediately became the final contract. In the closed room, north opened 1♣︎ and Marty Fleisher decided not to interfere with the bidding at all. This is how the bidding went:

Perhaps a double over 1NT would show this east hand? Zamir went 3 down and lost 5 IMPs because 110 was made in clubs at the other table.

In the other semi-final, Adam Kaplan had much less luck as north; he was also doubled in 1NT, but here east (Bobby Levin) held a penalty double. When the smoke cleared, Adam managed to take only 3 tricks and scored –1100. That lost a bucket of IMPs when his teammate in the other room overcalled 2♣︎ with the east hand and played there.

The finals

The final saw the Fleisher Team, playing in superb form (at least to judge by the scores), facing a Goodman team that seemed a team of destiny – a last-minute substitution had brought the stalwart veteran superstar and former bridge prodigy Bobby Levin in at the eleventh hour when one of the Goodman players found himself turned away at border control at JFK Airport in New York.

First quarter

Fleisher sent in Sjoert Brink and Bas Drijver along with the French stars Thomas Bessis and Cedric Lorenzini, while Goodman entered Mike and Andy along with Bobby Levin and Giacomo Percario.

On board 13 of the first quarter, Sjoert Brink showed his grit by declaring 3NT despite holding a singleton in his opponent's bid suit:

"If west promises spades and east doesn't bid them, then partner must hold something in spades,” Brink must have thought. The contract cannot be made on its own merits, but as is so often the case in practice, discarding on a long suit is one of the hardest parts of defending. Mike Passell led the ♦︎6, through the king to the ace. Brink first played seven rounds of clubs. For the first five rounds, Goodman held onto his diamonds tightly, but on the last two clubs, he let two of them go. After that, the contract could no longer go down. When Brink then boldly played a diamond, the honors in that suit crashed, and he even made an overtrick. The bidding in the other room was a bit wilder:

With two kings badly placed, Lorenzini went down one without a chance, but Fleisher won 11 IMPs.

Second quarter

In the second quarter, Brink and Drijver took a seat on the bench. Whether this had anything to do with the World Cup football final, I cannot say, but they undoubtedly watched it. Marty Fleisher and Chip Martel jumped in to prove they can pick up IMPs without the Dutchies. Cédric Lorenzini (W) and Thomas Bessis (E) bid a very good slam; after the failed Stayman inquiry, East showed his club suit. West likes what he sees, and after some further investigation the sharp slam is reached, whereas their opponents stopped in 3NT at the other table. Not exactly a gimme, considering E‑W hold only 30 high‑card points

After the opening lead of the ♦︎3, Bessis won the trick in dummy and immediately started ruffing spade losers. A little later, the losing heart went away on the fourth round of diamonds. Declarer played it safe and finished with 12 tricks. Had he ruffed all three of his spades, he would have made 13 tricks due to the friendly layout. His team had already gained 10 IMPs (+430), so the extra trick would not have added another IMP to Fleisher.

Third quarter

In the third quarter, Brink and Drijver retook their seats, while Fleisher and Martel stayed in. The biggest swing in this quarter full of pushes, was on the first board:

At both tables, east rebid a strong, no-trump-type of hand. Martel wished his partner good luck with it. After a low diamond lead, Fleisher won the king with his ace and immediately returned a diamond. Percario took this second trick with his jack and decided that the defense should switch to spades. When holding queen-third, shifting to the queen is often the right play, and that is exactly what Percario did. This did not hurt declarer in the slightest, and Fleisher was happy to finish with 9 tricks.

Kevin Dwyer-Rimstedt, however, thought it was better not to stay in NT with a 4=4=4=1 shape, so Huang had to play in 2♦︎. Drijver (N) led the ♦︎K and declarer ducked two rounds (it would have been better to win the second trick, but the contract could still be made). Brink played a third round of trumps, so the ace finally won. Huang then started playing spades: the king first, followed by the jack. Brink did not cover, after which declarer played a third round from dummy, won the queen with his ace, and decided to also play the spade ten. Brink could have ruffed this to get the contract one down, but discarded the ♥︎8 instead.

West still had to guess: should he finesse the ♣︎K or place the ♥︎A in the north hand? He chose the latter, played a club to the ace to ruff a card, but that was his seventh and last trick: 5 IMPs to Fleisher to give them a 120-57 IMP lead. How on earth could team Goodman gain at least 63 IMPs more than Fleisher in the final quarter? They couldn’t.

Fourth quarter

This was the last board of the fourth set:

Bessis (E) doubled the unbeatable 3NT and, fortunately, his partner was wise enough to pull the double. He tried to show his second suit by running to 4♣︎ first, but when Bessis did not move, he rebid his long spades and not his hearts. Dwyer-Rimstedt doubled and led a club. There are five tricks available for NS, but watch what happened. South won the cheapest trick in his career so far with the ♣︎8 and continued with the ♥︎6; the ♥︎8 forced the king. The trump king pinned the queen, and north took his ace straight away to continue with the ♣︎Q.

Declarer put up the king and, instead of ruffing, west discarded a heart - a move that cost him an extra trick (even pitching the ♦︎K would have been better). However, that was only in theory, because later in the play, north led the ♥︎Q, swallowing partner's jack and giving the lost trick back to declarer. Miraculously, west ended up with nine tricks for -100, which was a great result. I am still puzzling how west did that.

At the other table, Brink (S) opened 3♣︎, and after a 3♠︎ overcall by west, Drijver (N) gave 3NT a go, which pleased everyone. East led the ♠︎K, which pinned the queen. Drijver, holding the ♠︎9, won the trick and immediately started working on clubs. After winning the second round of clubs in dummy, declarer, thinking he was still a trick short, played a low heart from dummy. Playing to drop a blank DK instead was a very low-percentage line. We will never know which heart Drijver would have played next, because west rose with the ace to cash a high spade (he couldn't tell whether Drijver was trying to steal his ninth trick). As a result, Drijver made his contract, giving Fleisher a 7-IMP swing for a final score of 134-79.

A convincing victory

All in all, a convincing victory by the Fleisher Team, hard on the heels of their victory in the recent Vanderbilt (in St. Louis in March). They seemed to get stronger as the week went on, and the nature of their victory in the Grand Final - holding their opponents to 74 IMPs, not even 1.2 per board - extraordinary!

Perhaps they’re extending their streak at the quadrennial World Series of Bridge, being contested in Poland as I write this tonight from the American midwest.

Win or lose in Poland, Marty will be there in California (San Diego) in a few months, trying to complete a very rare triple with a win in the Reisinger - Kaplan and Roth managed to win all three major US championships in a single calendar year, I believe, around 1966, but - I’m not sure that anyone else ever has.

San Diego in late November - will we see you there? If you have a good deal from the next nationals - send it to the editors here: editor@imp-bridge.nl