Vol. LV No. 4 Dec. 2013 Winter in Westchester Weekend: Jan. 3-5 paired with experienced Join us on Sunday for local players, and enjoy stratified Swiss Teams at dinner and wine . Ama- Sleepy Hollow Country teurs will be assigned to a Club. The entry fee of $35 life master or better, with per person includes conti- some Amateurs randomly nental breakfast, lunch paired with local bridge and a full day of bridge. professionals. New play- The club is located at 777 ers and those new to du- Albany Post Road in plicate especially are wel- Scarborough, just a few come. Preregistration is minutes past Tarrytown, strongly encouraged. Pair- and convenient to I87/287 ings are guaranteed only and Broadway. Note that for entries received by in order to provide the January 1. To register or club with a participant for more information, count, we are requesting Join us for the Winter in contact Ellyn Plato preregistration by Decem- Inside this Westchester weekend Jan- (email: efpla- ber 30th. Game time is issue: uary 3-5. Special events [email protected], phone: 10:00. A team entry form include a Friday Pro Am 914-478-2169) or send in is on page 8. Walk-in en- Tournament and Saturday special pairs the registration form on tries will be accepted only 4-5 Results game at the Bridge Deck page 8. Dinner begins at on a very limited basis and then Sunday Swiss 6:00 PM and game time is and are not guaranteed. If Winter in Teams at Sleepy Hollow 7:00 PM. you would like to play Westchester Entry 8 Forms Country Club. and want help arranging a Saturday there will be a team, we will be provid- Club News 13 The weekend kicks off two session pairs game at ing partnership assistance Masterpoint Races 14 with the Pro Am on Fri- the Bridge Deck. Play ei- in advance of the event. day evening at the Bridge ther one or both sessions. Email Jill Marshall at Rank Changes 15 Deck. For only $15, play- Game times are 10:00 [email protected] ers with less than 100 AM and 3:00 PM. for help with partnerships. masterpoints will be VISIT US ON THE WEB AT WWW.BRIDGE-WCBA.ORG Page 2 Bridging the Counties CLIFF’S NOTES by Cliff Nebel THE HALL OF FAME votes) were now Hall of Famers. Howard Schenken had over the required 30% (33 votes), but the three maximum per year rule In the February 1964 issue, The Bridge World Magazine made was in effect. the announcement of the formation of the Hall of Fame. The idea was originated by Lee Hazen, one of the earliest Life Masters, The class of 1966 included, with seventy four columnists vot- and a longtime friend of The Bridge World. The goal was to keep ing, Waldemar Von Zedtwitz, Howard Schenken, and Sidney alive the heritage of contract bridge and give permanent recogni- Silodor. The voting was 36, 33, and 30 respectively. tion to those instrumental in making bridge the game it is today. There seemed to be waning interest in the Hall of Fame as can It further states that small heads cast in bronze would be fabricat- be witnessed to by the decline in voting columnists each year. ed and placed in a suitable public place. For 1964, and all suc- The Hall of Fame went into hibernation for nearly thirty years. In ceeding years, bridge columnists of the United States would elect 1995, ACBL took over control of the Hall Of Fame. It actually a maximum of three members. Votes would be sent to Arthur was a new entity: The ACBL Hall of Fame. The ACBL inducted Young & Company, Certified Public Accountants, for tabulation. the original nine members and added eight more. The additional A vote of 30% would be needed for election. This seems to be a 1995 members were Edgar Kaplan, Al Roth, Bobby Wolff, B. Jay rather small requirement. For comparison, The Baseball HoF Becker, Easley Blackwood, John Crawford, Barry Crane, and requires 75%, The National Football League HoF, after a whit- Helen Sobel Smith. tling down procedure requires 80 %( there are exceptions.) The National Basketball HoF requires 75%. It was also noted that New rules and procedures were added. These are too numerous voting for the 1964 election was under way. to discuss here, but can be found on The ACBL website. The Blackwood and Von Zedtwitz Awards were added. The Black- Ballots for the 1964 election had forty names. These were sent wood Award to given to a player living or dead who has made to 115 bridge columnists in the U. S. The first three members major contributions to the game outside of his or her bridge ex- elected were Ely Culbertson (70 votes), Charles Goren (54 votes) pertise. The Von Zedtwitz Award is given to a deceased player and Harold Vanderbilt (44 votes). Others receiving over 30% of for contributions to bridge in playing or other area of bridge ex- the vote were Oswald Jacoby, Sidney Lenz and Milton Work. pertise. The Official Encyclopedia of Bridge says the Von There was some criticism of the procedure. It was pointed out Zedtwitz goes to a deceased player, but the ACBL website makes that some top names were left off the ballot: Sidney Silodor, no such distinction. The 2001 winners of the Von Zedtwitz Charles Solomon and Alvin Landy. Another suggestion was that Award, Eric Murray and Sami Kehela, in my opinion, must have bridge personalities from other countries should be on the ballot. been ecstatic to find out that they were still alive. The 1965 class, posted in the March 1965 issue of The Bridge As of this writing, May 8, 2011, The HoF has one hundred and World consisted of the three men who just missed election in the one members. You can check the members by year in The Offi- inaugural year. With only eighty two columnists voting, Oswald cial Encyclopedia of Bridge. Jacoby (44 votes), Milton Work (37 votes) and Sidney Lenz (35 BRIDGING THE COUNTIES (ISSN 1059-3586) is published Unit Board Nominations four times a year in March, June, September and December by The WCBA nominating committee, consisting of Gail Cannold, Dan the Westchester Contract Bridge Association, 190 East Post Hertz and Chairperson Linda Otness, offers the following slate of candi- Road, White Plains, NY 10601. $1 of yearly membership fees dates for 2014: shall be applied to yearly subscription for the publication. Periodi- Officers for one year terms cals postage is paid at White Plains, NY. President: Farley Mawyer Vice-President: Joe DiBenedetto POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: Bridging the Coun- Secretary: Eileen O’Neill ties, 190 East Post Road, White Plains, NY 10601. Treasurer: Henry Deutsch Directors for one year terms WESTCHESTER CONTRACT BRIDGE ASSOCIATION Susan Duval www.bridge-wcba.com Directors for two year terms District: www.bridge-district3.org Cliff Nebel Directors for three year terms President: Farley Mawyer Jeff Allen, Wendy Sklar Marshall Frank, Carol Laufer, Ellen Tilzer Editor: Ellyn Plato To nominate anyone else, please email [email protected] Contributors: Glenda Calkins, Jason Fuhrman, Farley Mawyer, Respectfully submitted, Marjorie Murstein, Cliff Nebel, Ethan Stein Linda Otness December 2013 Page 3 EVER WANT TO BE A MAGAZINE EDITOR? Enjoy writing, editing or graphic design? The Westchester Contract Bridge Association is looking for a new editor. The position includes a stipend. The bulletin is produced four times a year, displayed on our website www.Bridge-WCBA.Org, and mailed to the approximately 1,500 members of Unit 188. Like writing or editing, but worried you don’t have graphic design skills? The issue cur- rently is produced using Microsoft Publisher (part of Microsoft Office). It’s easy to use and we’re happy to train you. Be as creative as you like with the Bulletin. New ideas are welcome. Email Ellyn at [email protected] for more information. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR I took umbrage at the sentence [in the June 2013 issue about The Bridge World magazine], “It includes articles of interest to serious players and ardent fans of the game. Nowadays, with rubber-bridge in decline, the content is strongly tournament-oriented.” Rubber bridge didn't decline -- the people playing it just gradually died off AND also because the Bridge Establishment (Bridge World, the ACBL, etcetera etcetera) WANTED rubber bridge and sociable bridge players to disappear. As a 93-year old survivor of the Goren era (when EVERYBODY played bridge) and a blogger about sociable bridge, and why the Bridge Establishment is mistaken in its mission to promote ONLY duplicate bridge, you-all are never ever going to bring bridge back to what it once was with that policy. Duplicate bridge is a finite market, sociable bridge is a mass market. Maggy Simony Editor’s note: Maggy makes interesting points about social bridge. Check out her blog: http://bridgetable.net for more of her icono- clastic views. UNIT 188 - PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE Hopefully you have already Westchester Contract Bridge Association has established a Char- seen the long delayed Sep- ity and Educational Foundation. While we are still awaiting noti- tember issue. In it I men- fication of our 501C3 status we are happy to accept donations. Farley tioned the death of Warren Contributions may be sent to the Foundation's treasurer, Ellyn Rosner. In the issue before Plato at . that we read about Joan When I get back from Phoenix I hope to see you at many up- Mawyer Gerard. Elsewhere in this coming tournaments in the area. We are going back to Pace for a issue we learn about Bob sectional on December 14 and 15; this time at the Wilcox gym- Goldwater who, many years nasium.