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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]
| 1. |  Pierre Jaïs | Roger Trézel | |
| 2. |  Terence Reese | Boris Schapiro | ||
| [lower-alpha 1] | 3. | René Bacherich | Pierre Ghestem | |
| 1966 [3]
| 1. |  Hans Kreijns | Bob Slavenburg | |
| 2. |  John Fisher | Jim Jacoby | ||
| [lower-alpha 1] | 3. | B. Jay Becker | Dorothy Hayden | |
| 1970 [4]
| 1. |  Fritz Babsch | Peter Manhardt | |
| 2. |  Benito Garozzo | Federico Mayer | ||
| [lower-alpha 1] | 3. | William Saulino | Italo Zanasi | |
| 1974 [5]
| [lower-alpha 2] | 1. | Bob Hamman | Bobby Wolff |
| 2. | Adriano Abate | Leandro Burgay | ||
| 3. | Federico De Paula | Italo Zanasi | ||
| 1978 [6]
| 1. |  Marcelo Branco | Gabino Cintra | |
| 2. |  Eric Kokish | Peter Nagy | ||
| 3. | Roger Bates | John Mohan | ||
| 1982 [7]
| 1. | Chip Martel | Lew Stansby | |
| 2. | Anton Maas | Max Rebattu | ||
| 3. | Gabriel Chagas | Roberto Mello | ||
| 1986 [8]
| 1. | Jeff Meckstroth | Eric Rodwell | |
| 2. | Heinrich Berger | Wolfgang Meinl | ||
| 3. |  Steve Burgess | Paul Marston | ||
| 1990 [9]
| 1. | Marcelo Branco | Gabriel Chagas | |
| 2. | Ralph Katz | Peter Nagy | ||
| 3. |  Cezary Balicki | Adam Żmudziński | ||
| 1994 [10]
| 1. | Marcin Leśniewski | Marek Szymanowski | |
| 2. | Bob Hamman | Michael Rosenberg | ||
| 3. | Eric Kirchhoff | Anton Maas | ||
| 1998 [11][12]
| 1. | Michał Kwiecień | Jacek Pszczoła | |
| 2. | David Berkowitz | Larry N. Cohen | ||
| 3. |  Peter Fredin | Magnus Lindkvist | ||
| 2002 [13][14]
| 327 | 1. | Fulvio Fantoni | Claudio Nunes |
| 2. | Zia Mahmood | Michael Rosenberg | ||
| 3. | Diego Brenner | Gabriel Chagas | ||
| 2006 [15][16]
| 392 | 1. |  FU Zhong | ZHAO Jie (Jack Zhao) |
| 2. | Bobby Levin | Steve Weinstein | ||
| 3. | Fulvio Fantoni | Claudio Nunes | ||
| 2010 [17][18]
| 313 | 1. | Bobby Levin | Steve Weinstein |
| 2. | Björn Fallenius | Peter Fredin | ||
| 3. |  Josef Piekarek | Alexander Smirnov | ||
| 2014 [19]
| 200[lower-alpha 3] | 1. |  Ehud Friedlander | Inon Liran |
| 2. | Jacek Kalita | Michał Nowosadzki | ||
| 3. | Thomas Bessis | Cédric Lorenzini | ||
- [citation needed] The WBF currently lists only the winners and runners up, neither third place nor the size of the field.
- There were 200 initial entries in 2014, excluding drop-ins from the teams.[19]
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