Kaplan Bridge Team Is Tops

Veteran bridge experts Edgar Kaplan of New York, Norman Kay of Philadelphia, Bill Root of Boca Raton, Fla., and Richard Pavlicek of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., won the Open Team Championship Sunday night, ending the 10-day North American Bridge Tournament.

In the final match of the contest for the Vanderbilt Cup, oldest trophy in tournament bridge, the Kaplan team led by 65 to 32 international match points at the halfway mark, trailed by seven after the third quarter, and came from behind to win 124-95 over the team of Jim Whitaker of Warner Robins, Ga., Lou Bluhm of Atlanta, Bob Bramley of Seattle, Ira Chorush of Houston and Chris Compton of Austin, Tex.

The victory assured the Kaplan team a berth in the playoffs scheduled for May, 1987, to pick the North American team in the 1987 world championship.

A team headed by Edwin Kantar and Jim Robison of Los Angeles and Robert Radwin of West Covina was eliminated in the semifinals by the Whitaker team. In the other semifinal match, the 1985 world champions, Hugh Ross of San Francisco, Peter Pender of Forestville, Calif., Chip Martel of Davis, Calif., and Lew Stansby, of Castro Valley, Calif., were eliminated by the Kaplan team.

Earlier in the tournament, Stansby and Chicago expert Richard Katz won the Open Pair Championship. Radwin, partnered by Venkatrao Koneru of San Antonio, took 11th place, leading the Southland contingent.

In other early results, Bob Hamman of Dallas and Paul Swanson of Morgantown, W. Va., won the Men’s Pairs. The leading Southland participant, Mike Smolen of Marina del Rey, playing with Allan Stauber of Wappinger Falls, N.Y., finished 10th.

Edith Freilich of Miami Beach and Nancy Gruver of Ellicott City, Md., won the Women’s Pairs. Beverly Rosenberg of Sherman Oaks and Jill Meyers of Los Angeles, 11th, led Southland players.

Lisa and David Berkowitz of Harmon Cove, N.J., won the Mixed Pairs. Mike Shuman of Los Angeles, finishing 11th, led the Southland players and was partnered by Nell Cahn of Shreveport, La.