4 Californians Victors in Team Bridge Tourney

Four Californians won the Grand National Team Championship here Sunday night after the first five days of play at the 12-day North American Bridge Tournament.

Chip Martel, of Davis; Peter Pender, of Forestville; Hugh Ross, of Oakland, and Lew Stansby, of Castro Valley, with this writer as non-playing captain, won the final match by 199 to 116 international match points over the Washington, D.C., team of Peter Boyd, Bobby Lipsitz, Ed Manfield and Steve Robinson. Four thousand teams entered the Grand National almost a year ago, and the top 25 came to the North American Championships Wednesday for the final rounds.

The four Californians, together with Dallas experts Bob Hamman and Bob Wolff, and this writer again as non-playing captain, will go to Sao Paulo, Brazil, late in October to represent the United States in a 10-team world championship.

In the only other major championship completed thus far in the 12-day tournament here, the team of Alan and Dorothy Truscott, of New York, Evelyn Levitt and David Treadwell, both of Wilmington, Del., and Bill and Rozanne Pollack, of Englewood, N.J., won the Master Mixed Team Championship from a field of 314 teams with a score of 36.82 match points. Truscott is the bridge columnist for the New York Times.

A team headed by Barbara Hamman and Vic Chernoff, both of Los Angeles, fourth with 33.91 points, led the Southern California contingent. Steve McConnell, Los Angeles; Shirley Blum, Fresno; Thomas Lolli, North Hollywood, and Trudy Nugit, Northridge, were seventh with 33.35. A team led by Mike Shuman of Los Angeles was eighth with 32.85, and a team led by Mark Itabashi of Rancho Palos Verdes was 19th with 31.06 points.