Zia Mahmood

Zia Mahmood (born January 7, 1946 in Karachi, Pakistan) is a Pakistani professional bridge player. He is a World Bridge Federation and American Contract Bridge League Grand Life Master. He has a knack for bringing out the best in his partners and is regarded as one of the greatest players of the game. As of April 2011 he ranks number 10 among Open World Grand Masters.

Zia achieved international bridge fame practically overnight when he led Pakistan to second place in the 1981 Bermuda Bowl tournament. The Bermuda Bowl is the most important open world championship and that was the first participation by anyone from the current geographic zone "Asia and the Middle East", also tie for the best finish by anyone from outside Europe and the United States. (Brazil having won in 1989, it remains tie for best finish by anyone from outside Europe and the Americas.)

Five years later, Zia led a short-handed team from Pakistan to second place in the Rosenblum Cup tournament, which is the open world championship in even-number non-Olympic years (1986). That remains tie for best finish by anyone from the outskirts. The event is transnational, but none of the nine winning teams has included a single player from outside Europe and the United States.

Zia Mahmood is the author of Bridge My Way, an autobiography, and has hosted many TV shows. For many years his regular partner was Masood Salim (deceased), followed by Michael Rosenberg, and now Bob Hamman—as members of Nick Nickell's professional team through spring 2012. Beginning 2012/2013, Nickell has replaced Hamman and Zia with Bobby Levin–Steve Weinstein. It was reported in November that Zia will play for Marty Fleisher in partnership with Chip Martel.

Recently Zia has represented the United States in world competition, and thus he won his first major world championship, the 2009 Bermuda Bowl. (He won the quadrennial Mixed Teams in 2004 with Sabine Auken and a French pair.) He still considers himself Pakistani, however: "I am proud and happy to be representing America, but my Pakistani identity is in no way submerged. I feel like a Pakistani who is living in America and playing for America." To prove his point, Zia and his American teammates once played their opening match in Pakistani dress.

Zia was educated in England from the age of six to twenty-one. He qualified as a Chartered Accountant of the Institute of England and Wales and spent three years running the family newspaper chain in Pakistan. He also spent eighteen months in Abu Dhabi developing business interests.

Recently he spends much of his time in Great Britain and the United States and is very much part of the London bridge scene. He wrote a weekly column for The Guardian newspaper until January 2012, when the paper stopped covering bridge.

The ACBL Hall of Fame inducted Zia in 2007. According to the citation sometime that year, he was a London resident. He had two sons with Emma, his wife of five years.