World Open Pairs Championship

The World Open Pairs Championship is a contract bridge competition initiated in 1962 and held as part of the World Bridge Series Championships every four years. Open to all pairs without any quota restrictions on nationality, the championship is widely regarded as the most prestigious pairs competition in contract bridge. In its present form, the competition lasts eight days.

World meets commonly run for 15 days on a schedule whose details vary.

In 2006 the Open Pairs played Saturday to Saturday, the 8th to 15th days of the meet, with five qualifying, five semifinal, and five final sessions. At the start of qualifying, 32 teams remained in the knockout stage of the marquee teams competition for the Rosenblum Cup. During qualifying sessions for the pairs, the Rosenblum teams were reduced from 32 to 8. There were some provisions for late entry to the pairs by players knocked out of the teams at a late stage. There were 392 pairs in the qualifier, 193 in the semifinal, and 72 in the final.^[1]

United States pairs have won four of 14 tournaments through 2014, Brazil two, Poland two, and six other nations one each. (The tournament is "open" in several respects including the registered nationalities of partners but no transnational pair has won any of the 42 medals.) Marcelo Branco of Brazil is the only two-time champion.

Year, Site	Entries		Medalists
1962 [2] Cannes, France		1.	Pierre Jaïs	Roger Trézel
		2.	Terence Reese	Boris Schapiro
	[a]	3.	René Bacherich	Pierre Ghestem
1966 [3] Amsterdam, Netherlands		1.	Hans Kreijns	Bob Slavenburg
		2.	John Fisher	Jim Jacoby
	[a]	3.	B. Jay Becker	Dorothy Hayden
1970 [4] Stockholm, Sweden		1.	Fritz Babsch	Peter Manhardt
		2.	Benito Garozzo	Federico Mayer
	[a]	3.	William Saulino	Italo Zanasi
1974 [5] Las Palmas, Spain	[b]	1.	Bob Hamman	Bobby Wolff
		2.	Adriano Abate	Leandro Burgay
		3.	Federico De Paula	Italo Zanasi
1978 [6] New Orleans, USA		1.	Marcelo Branco	Gabino Cintra
		2.	Eric Kokish	Peter Nagy
		3.	Roger Bates	John Mohan
1982 [7] Biarritz, France		1.	Chip Martel	Lew Stansby
		2.	Anton Maas	Max Rebattu
		3.	Gabriel Chagas	Roberto Mello
1986 [8] Miami Beach, USA		1.	Jeff Meckstroth	Eric Rodwell
		2.	Heinrich Berger	Wolfgang Meinl
		3.	Steve Burgess	Paul Marston
1990 [9] Geneva, Switzerland		1.	Marcelo Branco	Gabriel Chagas
		2.	Ralph Katz	Peter Nagy
		3.	Cezary Balicki	Adam Żmudziński
1994 [10] Albuquerque, USA		1.	Marcin Leśniewski	Marek Szymanowski
		2.	Bob Hamman	Michael Rosenberg
		3.	Eric Kirchhoff	Anton Maas
1998 [11][12] Lille, France		1.	Michał Kwiecień	Jacek Pszczoła
		2.	David Berkowitz	Larry N. Cohen
		3.	Peter Fredin	Magnus Lindkvist
2002 [13][14] Montreal, Canada	327	1.	Fulvio Fantoni	Claudio Nunes
		2.	Zia Mahmood	Michael Rosenberg
		3.	Diego Brenner	Gabriel Chagas
2006 [15][16] Verona, Italy	392	1.	FU Zhong	ZHAO Jie (Jack Zhao)
		2.	Bobby Levin	Steve Weinstein
		3.	Fulvio Fantoni	Claudio Nunes
2010 [17][18] Philadelphia, USA	313	1.	Bobby Levin	Steve Weinstein
		2.	Björn Fallenius	Peter Fredin
		3.	Josef Piekarek	Alexander Smirnov
2014 [19] Sanya, China	200[c]	1.	Ehud Friedlander	Inon Liran
		2.	Jacek Kalita	Michał Nowosadzki
		3.	Thomas Bessis	Cédric Lorenzini

• World Mixed Pairs Championship
• World Women Pairs Championship

• World Open Pairs Championships 1962–present (table) at the World Bridge Federation.