blindsey

In Don von Elsner's "Jake of Diamonds", Jake Winkman is playing in a team-of-four. Each partnership on his team consists of one expert who knows the field well, and one p;ayer who doesn't. In what Jake describes as a "perfectly ethical signal", each expert will signal to his or her partner whether their opponents and their teammates are experts, middling, or lesser players. The information is used to determine how aggressively they play, whether to push for slams, etc. Is this really ethical? Or was it in the 1960s when the book was written?

Has anyone here played WFF n Proof? Thoughts?

And to think that bridge became popular during the Great Depression because it was so cheap. Just a deck of cards, and tables and chairs that could be used for other purposes, like dinner. Of course, people at that time could organize games at home without the assistance of a national organization, and didn't have smartphones. I hear that decks of cards are still for sale in some places.

I'd be surprised if there are any recent instances of bridge in TV shows, but here's a clip from the 1980s: Dr. Ackermann was an obstetrician running an illicit adoption program. His MO was to announce during labor that there were "complications" which required putting the mother under anesthetic. While she was unconcious, he would deliver the baby and have it taken away, then tell the mother it had been stillborn when she regains conciousness. One of his victims was a friend of Karen (who rams his car in the parking lot). Although Ackerman had gone into hiding, Karen was sure he would risk showing up for an important bridge tournament because she had investigated bridge players and found they were fanatics. I can remember, but can't find a clip, of an episode of McMillan and Wife in which the McMillans play bridge against another couple in their home. I remember that the bidding went to 7NT redoubled. Does anyone remember that?

I've read a number of good ones, all from the last century. Anyone know of others (old or new)? The ones I've read: At the Table, Bob Hamman The Bridge Bum, Alan Sontag Husbands and Other Men I've Played With, Patricia Fox Sheinwold Education of a Bridge Player, Howard Schenken My Life in Bridge, Omar Sharif

From the late, great Rodney Dangerfield: "My wife signed me up with a bridge club. I jump off next Tuesday."

Can anyone point me to a reasonably complete summary of this system online? Since I can't google one up, maybe something on the Wayback Machine?

OK, got the book, read the article. Briefer than I thought it would be, but it said what it said. Now to read the rest of the book. The bits on the development of the K-S System look interesting.

Interesting comment on Quora re Paul Heitner. The question was "What are some cool examples of two kinds of people?" The author apparently is not a bridge player, but worked with Heitner as a programmer. He mentions Heitner's bridge credentials in passing (enough to know this is indeed the same Paul Heitner we'd know about). But read the whole thing: https://qr.ae/pvHcMX

I see there's a book called "Bridge Master: the Best of Edgar Kaplan". Is "New Science" in this book? I can't find a table of contents for the book anywhere online.

Is this article available anywhere on the web? I can't find it. You'd think such an important historic article would be available somewhere. I've wondered about that. Hard to be very accurate with purely natural bids.

30 minutes of an apparently 2-hour telecast - Charles Goren and Helen Sobel in a national tournament:

SAYC is a specific variety of Standard American and there's no problem finding where it came from. I've looked at some online news archives and *apparently* it only came about in about the mid-60s, at least with a capital-S on Standard. Before that, it was used rarely with a small-s: "standard American bidding practices" (not System). I saw references to the Culbertson-Goren system (in the early 1950s), Goren Point Count System (later), etc. That's what I could find in the old newspapers, which doesn't mean I've dug up the whole story.

When did the term "Standard American" originate? As far as I can see, Culbertson's system was called "The Culbertson System". Did Goren come up with this?

Presumably Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon are still welcome.