The Mahaffey team reached the Round of 8 in the 2005 USBC, having defeated Meltzer in the Round of 16. They lost to eventual runners-up Welland in the Round of 8. With all of this year's USBC players except Jacek "Pepsi" Pszczola, the Mahaffey team reached the Quarterfinals of the 2006 Rosenblum in Verona, Italy.
SYSTEM INFORMATION
MAHAFFEY-SHENKIN System Summary
COHLER-LAIR System Summary .
LEV-PSZCZOLA System Summary.
ABOUT THE PLAYERS
Jim Mahaffey
From Orlando Florida, Mahaffey is a successful businessman who specializes in large apartment developments. He has won many national and regional events, his last national win in 2004 the grand national teams.
Mark Lair
From Texas, Lair is a professional bridge player and fourth on the all time USA master point list. He has won 7 major national team titles and twelve secondary national events. He represented USA in Beijing in 1995 in the Bermuda bowl.
Gary Cohler
From Florida, Cohler is a professional bridge player who has won three national championships with 7 second place finishes. He represented USA in the 1996 olympiad in Rhodes Greece after winning the USA team trials.
Barnet Shenkin
Originally from Glasgow Scotland, Shenkin now lives in Florida. He played Internationally for both Scotland and Great Britain many times between 1970 and 1994. He has won 7 International Camrose Championships for Scotland, 3 British Gold Cups Seven Scottish cups and two Sunday Times Invitational pairs. He moved to USA in 1998. Since moving here, he has written “playing with the bridge legends” and has won three US national championships. Shenkin first met his USBC partner, Jim Mahaffey, when Shenkin’s team defeated Mahaffey’s in the semi-finals of the Proton Invitational teams event in Taiwan in 1989. In 2001, Shenkin's team lost in the USBC finals, and then also lost in the repechage finals (2 teams were being selected in 2001), making him a "double runner-up" in the event.
Jacek Pszczola
Pepsi is originally from Poland and now lives in the United States. He represented Poland In the Olympiad and The Bermuda Bowl. Pepsi won the World Open Pairs in 1998 in Lille, France, playing with Michal Kwiecien. He has also won the Cavendish Pairs and he finished fifth in the 2006 World Open Pairs in Verona.
Sam Lev
Originally from Israel, Lev now lives in New York City. His international record includes a second in the European Championships, two Bermuda Bowl bronze medals (in 1976 and 1985), and a gold in thee 2000 Transnational mixed teams. He has won five US NABC championships.