Florida Man Leads Team to Bridge Title

A team headed by bridge expert Tom Mahaffey, 75, of St. Petersburg, Fla., came from behind this week to win the Master Team Championship in Las Vegas, ending the 14-day North American Championships.

The Tuesday event, which had attracted 10,000 experts, was the biggest bridge tournament ever held.

With most of the contestants playing in several sessions, tournament participation totalled 19,828 tables, beating the previous record, set in 1978, by 1,310 tables.

At peak periods in the afternoon and evening sessions, more than 4,000 experts competed simultaneously. Minor events were scheduled for morning and midnight sessions.

The Mahaffey team included Jack Denny of Bradentown, Fla.; Russ Arnold of Miami; Bill Passell of Coral Springs, Fla.; Ira Rubin of Paramus, N.J., and Charles Burger of Detroit.

Their entry won by 162 to 145 international match points over the team of Mike Lawrence of Kensington, Calif.; Peter Weichsel of Miami Beach; Eric Rodwell of West Lafayette, Ind.; Jeff Meckstroth of Columbus, Ohio, and Ron Rubin of New York.

The Lawrence team led by 129 to 111 at the end of the third quarter.

The winners are eligible to compete in the 1986 World Team Championship, scheduled to be held in Bal Harbor, Fla.

Earlier in the tournament, Darryl Pedersen and George Steiner, both of Seattle, won the Life Master Pair Championship.

Pedersen credits bridge and the help of bridge friends for his recovery from a head-on automobile accident in 1967.

“They told me I’d never walk again, that I’d be a vegetable. But I walk with the help of a cane, and I’m a champion,” Pedersen remarked. “If it hadn’t been for my bridge friends it would have been a long, long recovery. It took six years as it was. They hauled me all over the place, even carrying me up and down stairs in my wheelchair.”