North American Collegiate Bridge Championships are an intramural college competition run by the American Contract Bridge League. The finals are held every summer in conjunction with the North American Bridge Championships. Any college in the United States, Canada, Mexico and/or Bermuda is eligible to participate in the event. Teams must consist of four to six players all from the same college.

Competition

The first North American College Team Championship was held in 1987 at the Spring NABC in St. Louis and the winners (except Barry Goren, who was not eligible because of his age) represented ACBL in the first World Junior Championships in the Netherlands. Guy Doherty, Jon Heller and Asya Kamsky—joined by Bill Hsieh and Aaron Silverstein—finished third in the World Junior championships.

The championships were played at the Spring NABCs from 1988 to 1990. In 1990, after Harvard had won by what is still the largest margin in the history of the event, the competition was moved to ACBL headquarters in Memphis where it was co-sponsored by ACBL and the Association of College Unions-International. The competition moved back to the Spring NABC in 1991 but the following year, it returned to Memphis, where it became part of the annual Memphis in May activities.

The event was cancelled after the 1996 championships. Between 1997 and 2001, OKBridge and ACBL teamed up to sponsor the Internet College Team Championships. In 2000, the Collegiate Championships were reinstated and held at the Summer NABC in Toronto in 2001. It was cancelled in 2002 and reinstated in 2003.

The competition changed in 2006, with two parts of competition. Teams would play in a one-day online qualifier in January. The format was a bracketed round robin, with the top number of teams from each bracket, up to 8 total, qualifying to the finals. Players received lodging, airfare and spending money to attend. The finals were a two-day competition that took place at the summer North American Bridge Championship. The first day consisted of a complete round robin, with the top four teams qualifying to the second day. The second day was a semi-final and final bracketed knockout. The winning team received a $2,000 scholarship.

In 2014, the competition format changed. Rather than a one-day online qualifier in January, colleges were assigned two head-to-head online matches each month starting in October and concluding in March. Teams would accumulate victory points based on the results of each head-to-head match. The two teams with the highest victory points at the end of December earned the first two qualifying positions. The two teams with the highest victory points at the end of March earned the next two qualifying positions. Four teams total qualified for the two-day championship. Players received lodging, airfare and spending money to attend. The first day was a full-day semi-final round, with the second day being a full-day final round. The winning team received a $20,000 scholarship.

In 2018, the championship was opened to all teams with no qualification required, with the online spring tournaments awarding only travel packages to the top finishers. In 2020, the championship was cancelled along with the Summer NABC due to COVID-19, though an unofficial online championship was held. In 2021, an official tournament was held on Bridge Base Online as part of the Summer NAOBC.

Championship winners City Year University Players Final Match Score Runner-up Players 2nd Runner-up Players St. Louis, MO 1987 New York University Guy Doherty, Barry Goren, Jon Heller, Asya Kamsky Buffalo, NY 1988 University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign Brian Blackmore, Dennis Carney, Justin Graver, Michael Steigmann Reno, NV 1989 University of Tennessee Jim Baker, Mike Cappelletti Jr., Michael White, David Williams Fort Worth, TX 1990 Harvard University Bill Cole, Michael Mitzenmacher, Franco Basseggio, James Colen Atlantic City, NJ 1991 University of Virginia John Miller, John Prince, Hank Strauch, Scott Tumperi Memphis, TN 1992 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Scott Bieber, Brady Richter, Andrew Skolnick, Ron Sperber Memphis, TN 1993 Yale University Matt Hastings, Douglas Koltenuk, Malik Madon-Ismail, Tony Tang Memphis, TN 1994 Harvard University Mark Paltrowitz, Barry Piafsky, Michael Steigmann, Tom Rozinski Memphis, TN 1995 Stanford University Steve Altus, Scott Benson, Bert Hackney, Joel Singer Memphis, TN 1996 Texas A&M Hank Eng, Eric Wolff, Patricia Lozano, Marc Whinery OKbridge 1997 Harvard University (mixed) Barry Piafsky, Shawn Samuel, Jenni Hartsman, Joel Singer OKbridge 1998 University of Kentucky Daniel Neill, Gilbert Busby, Ali Vaezy, Todd Anderson OKbridge 1999 University of California, San Diego Eugene Hung, Jeremy Martin, Dan Harting, Michael Davis, Richard Wang OKbridge 2000 University of Technology - Vienna, Austria OKbridge 2001 mixed Li-Chung Chen (Harvard), Andrew Cotton (Harvard), Quixiang Sun (Stanford), Theodore Hwa (Stanford), Jason Woolever (MIT) Toronto, ON 2001 University of California, San Diego Eugene Hung, Graham Hazel, Cameron Parker, Sriram Ramabhadran Cancelled 2002 Long Beach, CA 2003 Stanford University Samuel Ieong, Ho-Lin Chen, Joon Pahk, Eric Mayefsky New York City 2004 MIT Ljudmila Kamenova, Jason Chiu, John Hopkinson, Kevin Chu Atlanta, GA 2005 Yale University Marc Glickman, Christina Craige, Randall Rubinstein, Jonathan Bittner Dallas, TX 2006 University of Michigan Kevin Fay, Ilya Podolyako, Jeremy Vosko, Jonathan Zimbler Nashville, TN 2007 University of California, Los Angeles Jeffrey Schrader, Blake Haas, Jason Chu, Barry Ko Las Vegas, NV 2008 California Institute of Technology Roger Lee, Chien-Yao Tseng, Hsi-Chun Liu, Cheng William Hong Washington, D.C. 2009 Stanford University Eric Mayefsky, Zizhuo Wang, Elena Grewal, Alex Lovejoy New Orleans, LA 2010 University of Pennsylvania Kendrick Chow, Zhuo Wang, Naijia Guo, Zhiyi Huang Toronto, ON 2011 University of Pennsylvania Kendrick Chow, Zhuo Wang, Naijia Guo, Xi Chen Philadelphia, PA 2012 University of North Carolina Patrick Domico, Ovunc Yilmaz, Jinsheng Zhou, Xiyuan Ge Atlanta, GA 2013 University of Washington Ben Bomber, Greg Herman, Daniel Poore, Lee Holstein Las Vegas, NV 2014 University of California, Berkeley Armin Askari, Rebecca Wernis, Isha Thapa, Raymond von Mizener Chicago, IL 2015 University of Chicago Oren Kriegel, Julian Manasse-Boetani, Kelly Mao, Ruth Ng, Alexander Okamoto Washington, D.C. 2016 University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign Peter Yeh, Yewen Fan, Bradley Sevcik, Ziyang Liu University of California, Berkeley Toronto, ON 2017 Georgia Institute of Technology Arjun Dhir, Santhosh Karnik, Charles Wang, Zhuangdi Xu 80-37 University of Chicago Atlanta, GA 2018 University of California, Berkeley Chengwei Li, Kevin Rosenberg, Mingyang Zhou, Xinchen Zhu, Armin Askari 78-37 Georgia Institute of Technology Cyrus Hettle, Richard Jeng, Santhosh Karnik, Arjun Dhir, Zhuangdi Xu Las Vegas, NV 2019 University of California, Berkeley Stella Wan, Kevin Rosenberg, Jess Chao, Foster Tom, Armin Askari 78-57 University of Chicago Cynthia Huang, Ilan Wolff, Raphael Hallerman, Zihan Tan, Zhengyan Fang Bridge Base Online (Unofficial) 2020 University of California, Santa Barbara Andrew Rowberg, Philip Tian, Danning Lu, Nicholas Adamski, Ian Banta, Aaron Maharry, David McCarthy, Michael Zheng 106-102 The Claremont Colleges (mixed) Jake Williams (Harvey Mudd College), Emma Kolesnik (Scripps College), Elke Kiva (Scripps College), Nick Koskelo (Harvey Mudd College), Luke Williams (Pomona College) Bridge Base Online 2021 Georgia Institute of Technology Cyrus Hettle, Santhosh Karnik, Sean McNally, Shengding Sun, Zhuangdi Xu, Bo Han Zhu Princeton University Nathan Finkle, Sam Berman, Aaron Balleisen, Yi Zhao, Sihui Dai Providence, RI 2022 University of Chicago Cynthia Huang, Ilan Wolff, Zihan Tan, Raphael Hallerman 54-24 Washington University in St. Louis Rohan Srivastava, Henry Shuster, Lucas Strammello, Jinhao Zhao Chicago, IL 2023 Georgia Institute of Technology Vincent Zhu, Bo Han Zhu, Weilong Shen, Alan Yu 70-59 Carnegie Mellon University Mingkuan Xu, Daniel Weiss, Alec Sun, Gan Yang Toronto, ON 2024 Georgia Institute of Technology Weilong Shen, Alan Yu, Kyle Rockoff, Alan Yeung 32-14 (1st vs 2nd), 25-32 (1st vs 3rd), 43-14 (2nd vs 3rd) University of Chicago Ziheng Yun, Zhiyu Cheng, Sarik Goyal, Alec Sun University of Waterloo Olivia Laufer, Max Cheng, Martin Zhao, John Dong Philadelphia, PA2025Princeton University Katherine Hwang, Tianyang Chen, Zhouzhou Gu, Zhao Yu Ma, Yitao ChenUniversity of California, BerkeleyJonathan Yue, Weichen Tang, Zhenling Wang, Mihir Singhal, Ethan XieNew York UniversityYanlai Yang, Zihan Wang, Ava Donnellan, Margot DonnellanMinneapolis, MN 2026 University of California, Berkeley Zhenling Wang, Weichen Tang, Mihir Singhal, Ethan Xie 94-21 Georgia Institute of Technology Justin Shiao, Alex Han, Lior Weber, Chase Lefevre

Participating colleges

College Year(s) Won Brandeis University Brown University California Institute of Technology 2008 Carleton College Claremont McKenna College College of William & Mary Columbia University Cornell University Dalhousie University Dartmouth College Davidson College Georgia Institute of Technology 2017, 2021, 2023, 2024 Hamilton College Harvard University 1990, 1994, 1997 Harvey Mudd College McGill University Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2004 Northwestern University New York University 1987 Ohio State University Princeton University2025 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 1992 Stanford University 1995, 2003, 2009 Swarthmore College1977 Texas A&M University 1996 University of California, Los Angeles 2007 University of California, Berkeley 2014, 2018, 2019, 2026 University of California, San Diego 1999, 2001"Toronto Daily Bulletin - College team title goes to San Diego" University of Chicago 2015, 2022 University of Kentucky 1998 University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign 1988, 2016 University of Maryland, College Park University of Michigan 2006 University of Minnesota University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill 2012 University of North Texas University of Oklahoma University of Pennsylvania 2010, 2011 University of Technology - Vienna, Austria 2000 University of Tennessee 1989 University of Texas at Austin University of Toronto University of Virginia 1991 University of Washington 2013 Washington University in St. Louis Whitman College Yale University 1993, 2005 (Overtime win)

External links ACBL official website

References