Blog posts celebrating ACBL’s 75th Anniversary in 2012 primarily composed of republished Bridge Bulletin articles covering everything from A to Z.
After the 1989 Corporate America vs. Congress Match, Congress team Captain Arlan Stangeland issued a challenge for a rematch the following year which was accepted. The second match was held on May 10, 1990 at the Capital Hill Club in Washington DC. The match was dedicated to Malcolm Forbes. Playing for Corporate America were Laurence
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Businessmen fight against legislators every day in Washington. The first such battle in the microcosm of the bridge table occurred May 11, 1989 in that city. ”We’ll see who can concentrate better on a bridge match, the lawmakers or the moneymakers,” said Kathie Wei, who with Dr. Patricia Cayne organized the Corporate America vs. U.S.
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The Marathon Bridge Battle of the Sexes was held April 1 – 15, 1989. The event was run as a team-of-four with one table of two men against two women was in play at the Cavendish Club in Manhattan. The other table, with men and women in the opposite directions, was at the Club de
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Alfred Sheinwold, one of the all-time great bridge writers and analysts, and Ed Manfield, ACBL Hall of Fame member, were voted the winners of the 1986 Bols Brilliancy Prizes. Sheinwold’s description of a deal excellently played by Manfield during the 1986 Rosenblum Cup final was selected from a slate of 10 candidate hand. Here is
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1986 ACBL President Tom Sanders and Ron Andersen were playing against George Tornay and Saul Bronstein behind screens in the Open Pairs at the 1986 World Championships in Bal Harbor FL. Sanders and Bronstein were on one side of the screen. Andersen and Tornay were on the other when this deal came up: Dlr: North
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One of the items in the ACBL museum that is most often asked about is the whip that was presented to long-time Bulletin editor Dick Frey upon his retirement. Dick Frey, Life Master #8, was a multi-talented writer, editor and champion player. Frey (1905-1988) was a public relations chief and editor of the Bridge Bulletin
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The Cavendish Invitational is the largest money bridge tournament in the world. The event was first contested in 1975 at the famous Cavendish Club founded in 1925 by Wilbur C. Whitehead in association with Gratz M. Scott and Edwin A. Wetzlar. The club was housed for the first eight years at the Mayfair House, and
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The first worldwide bridge contest, The Epson Simultaneous Pairs took place on Saturday, June 14, 1986. Organized by José Damiani of France, who was about to become president of the World Bridge Federation, the format was a single session 24-board game conducted throughout the world on the same day at approximately the same time everywhere.
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Peggy Solomon (Mrs. Charles J.) (1909-1995) daughter of movie magnate Jules E. Mastbaum, a Philadelphia philanthropist who donated the Rodin Museum, which opened in 1927, and holds his Rodin collection, grew up in a bridge environment – both her parents played. Peggy wanted to join the women’s bridge team at her country club shortly before
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The first duplicate boards (then called trays) were devised by Cassius M. Paine and J. L. Sebring in 1891. They were square boards, called Kalamazoo after the company that manufactured them. The first oblong boards were produced by William McKenney in 1928 using paper, and the first metal boards were manufactured in 1931 by F.
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Barry Crane, widely recognized as the top matchpoint player of all time, was a successful director/producer of film and television. He is one of a small group of world champion bridge players whose presence enhanced many tournaments while they maintained active and highly respected careers outside of bridge. Crane became ACBL’s top masterpoint holder in
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In the beginning* It should be no surprise that the first bridge exhibition to be staged for a large audience should have as its producer Ely Culbertson. More than a bridge player, teacher and author, Culbertson was first and foremost a showman — bridge’s own P.T Barnum. Determined to make bridge a spectator sport, Culbertson
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Throughout history, card cheats have always been held in contempt. So it is with bridge. The Laws of Contract Bridge are not designed to prevent cheating or to provide redress. The lawgivers have taken the view that it would be wrong to accord cheats a status by providing legal remedies against their activities. This also
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The first teacher of games in the bridge family was also one of the most successful. The “ladies of good family” to whom Edmund Hoyle taught whist were charged at the rate of one guinea an hour, equivalent to at least $100 an hour in modern terms. Hoyle’s celebrated Short Treatise, published in 1743 and
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Homer Shoop (1912-1991) of North Webster IN played tennis at Wimbledon, bridge in Biarritz and gave thousands of dollars to fund youth scholarships in the sports he loved. Shoop began his banking career at the age of 12 and by age 20 was running his hometown bank in Lawrence MI. In his late twenties he
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Oswald Jacoby (1902-1984) was one of the great players of all time. He first achieved international preeminence as the partner of Sidney Lenz in the famous Culbertson-Lenz Match of the early 1930s. Having already established himself as a champion at both auction and contract bridge, Jacoby next became a member of the famed Four Horsemen
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