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Pavliceks Top LM Open Pairs

by Brent Manley

Orlando NABC Bulletin — November 21, 2004

When they folded up their cards after the final board of the Bobby Nail Life Master Open Pairs, Richard Pavlicek and Richard Pavlicek Jr. thought there was no way they could win. On the last round, they went down in a game and let a game make that could have been defeated.

When the scores were tallied, however, the father-son combo found themselves in first place, right where they had been, albeit by a tiny margin, after the first final session.

Second place in the event went to Mark Aquino of Jamaica Plain MA and Jonathan Green of Kingston NY.

With the victory, the younger Pavlicek racked up his first North American championship in an unrestricted event (he previously won the Mini-Spingold). Dad added his 11th major championship, but it was his first pairs win after 10 team titles.

If not for Rich’s 9-month-old son, Seth, the younger Pavlicek might not have made it to Orlando. He is starting a career as a software engineer for Verity, Inc. in Sunnyvale CA, so he hasn’t been playing a lot of bridge. He wanted his dad and mom, Mabel, to enjoy some time with the latest addition to the family, so they traveled to Orlando for the NABC.

Said Rich of his dad, “He’s really the only person I play with now.” They do play on the Internet, but not much otherwise.

They have had success together, including a second-place finish in the six-session Life Master Open Pairs at the Summer NABC and a third place in the Blue Ribbon Pairs.

Going into the final session, the Pavliceks held a lead of 0.10 matchpoints over Ken Cohen and Richard Katz, who finished third in the event after leading the qualifiers into the final day.

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