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Sidney Lenz
Sidney Samuel Lenz (1873 – 1960) was an American contract bridge player and writer. He is a member of the American Contract Bridge League Hall of Fame, being inducted in the second (1965) class. Career Lenz was born July 12, 1873 in a suburb of Chicago. His parents were John J. and Joanna L. Lenz. The family moved to New York in 1888 (Lenz would have been 14 or 15) but Lenz returned to Chicago before he was 21, and he was soon successful in business, becoming owner of a lumber mill and a paper box factory. Rich by age 30, he retired from business to devote himself to his many avocations, a principal (but by no means only) one being bridge. In 1910 Lenz won the American Whist League's principal national team championship. (In his lifetime he won more than 600 whist and bridge competitions; whist is a precursor and close relative of bridge.) He learned auction bridge in 1911 from British Army officers while traveling in India, studying magic and Hindu culture. He achieved his gr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Contract Bridge
Contract bridge, or simply bridge, is a trick-taking card game using a standard 52-card deck. In its basic format, it is played by four players in two competing partnerships, with partners sitting opposite each other around a table. Millions of people play bridge worldwide in clubs, tournaments, online and with friends at home, making it one of the world's most popular card games, particularly among seniors. The World Bridge Federation (WBF) is the governing body for international competitive bridge, with numerous other bodies governing it at the regional level. The game consists of a number of , each progressing through four phases. The cards are dealt to the players; then the players ''call'' (or ''bid'') in an auction seeking to take the , specifying how many tricks the partnership receiving the contract (the declaring side) needs to take to receive points for the deal. During the auction, partners use their bids to also exchange information about their hands, including o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rubber Bridge
Rubber bridge is a form of contract bridge played by two competing pairs using a particular method of scoring. A rubber is completed when one pair becomes first to win two ''games'', each ''game'' presenting a score of 100 or more contract points; a new game ensues until one pair has won two games to conclude the rubber. Owing to the availability of various additional bonus and penalty points in the scoring, it is possible, though less common, to win the rubber by amassing more total points despite losing two games out of three. Rubber bridge involves a high degree of skill but there is also a fair amount of luck involved in who gets the best cards. A popular variation of rubber bridge is known as Chicago. Playing rubber bridge Rubber bridge is played with a standard deck of 52 cards. From high to low, the cards are ranked A, K, Q, J, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, and 2. Suits are ranked Spades (), Hearts (), Diamonds (), Clubs (). Four players play in two partnerships, with partners ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1873 Births
Events January–March * January 1 ** Japan adopts the Gregorian calendar. ** The California Penal Code goes into effect. * January 17 – American Indian Wars: Modoc War: First Battle of the Stronghold – Modoc Indians defeat the United States Army. * February 11 – The Spanish Cortes deposes King Amadeus I, and proclaims the First Spanish Republic. * February 12 ** Emilio Castelar, the former foreign minister, becomes prime minister of the new Spanish Republic. ** The Coinage Act of 1873 in the United States is signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant; coming into effect on April 1, it ends bimetallism in the U.S., and places the country on the gold standard. * February 20 ** The University of California opens its first medical school in San Francisco. ** British naval officer John Moresby discovers the site of Port Moresby, and claims the land for Britain. * March 3 – Censorship: The United States Congress enacts the Comstock Law, making it ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Judge (magazine)
''Judge'' was a weekly satirical magazine published in the United States from 1881 to 1947. It was launched by artists who had seceded from its rival '' Puck''. The founders included cartoonist James Albert Wales, dime novels publisher Frank Tousey and author George H. Jessop. History and profile The first printing of ''Judge'' was on October 29, 1881, during the Long Depression. It was 16 pages long and printed on quarto paper. While it did well initially, it soon had trouble competing with ''Puck''. William J. Arkell purchased the magazine in the middle 1880s. Arkell used his considerable wealth to persuade the cartoonists Eugene Zimmerman ("Zim") and Bernhard Gillam to leave ''Puck''. A supporter of the Republican Party, Arkell persuaded his cartoonists to attack the Democratic administration of Grover Cleveland. With GOP aid, ''Judge'' boomed during the '80s and '90s, surpassing its rival publication in content and circulation. By the early 1890s, the circulation of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Society Of American Magicians
The Society of American Magicians (S.A.M.) is the oldest fraternal magic organization in the world. Its purpose is "to advance, elevate, and preserve magic as a performing art, to promote harmonious fellowship throughout the world of magic, and to maintain and improve ethical standards in the field of magic." To promote these endeavors the S.A.M. presents awards and fellowships in recognition of outstanding achievement in the Art of Magic. Membership in the S.A.M. is open to professional magicians, amateur magicians, youth magicians, magic collectors, magic historians, magic inventors, magic manufacturers and magic dealers. Over 30,000 people worldwide have been members, and currently the S.A.M. has 5,000 members worldwide. Despite the word "American" in the name, S.A.M. includes magicians from around the world. Its current National President, Rod Chow (2022–23), is Canadian. History Founded on May 10, 1902, in the back room of Martinka's magic shop in New York City, the Soci ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Squeeze Play (bridge)
A squeeze play (or squeeze) is a technique used in contract bridge and other trick-taking games in which the play of a card (the '' squeeze card'') forces an opponent to discard a winner or the guard of a potential winner. The situation typically occurs in the end game, with only a few cards remaining. Although numerous types of squeezes have been analyzed and catalogued in contract bridge, they were first discovered and described in whist. Most squeezes operate on the principle that declarer's and dummy's hands can, between them, hold more cards with the potential to take extra tricks than a single defender's hand can protect or ''guard''. Infrequently, due to the difficulty of coordinating their holdings, two defenders can cooperate to squeeze declarer or dummy on the same principle. Context Complexity Squeeze plays are considered by many "to be the domain of the experts but many of the positions are straightforward once the basic principles are understood." And according to Ter ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bidding System
A bidding system in contract bridge is the set of agreements and understandings assigned to calls and sequences of calls used by a partnership, and includes a full description of the meaning of each treatment and convention. The purpose of bidding is for each partnership to ascertain which contract, whether made or defeated and whether bid by them or by their opponents, would give the partnership their best scoring result. Each bidding system ascribes a meaning to every possible call by each member of a partnership, and presents a codified language which allows the players to exchange information about their card holdings. The vocabulary of is limited to 38 different calls - 35 level/denomination ''bids''A bid consists of two components — the level in range of 1-7, and one of five denominations: clubs (), diamonds (), hearts (), spades () and notrump (NT) plus ''pass'', ''double'' and ''redouble''. Any bid becomes a contract if followed by three successive passes, therefore ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Takeout Double
In the card game contract bridge, a takeout double is a low-level conventional call of "Double" over an opponent's bid as a request for partner to bid his best of the unbid suits. The most common takeout double is after an opponent's opening bid of one of a suit where the double shows a hand with opening values, support for all three unbid suits (at least three cards in each) and shortness in the suit doubled (preferably, no more than two). Normally, the partner of the doubler must bid his best suit but may pass if (a) his right hand opponent intervenes or (b) on the more rare occasions when his hand is such that he wishes to convert the takeout double to a . Requirements Commonly a double is considered for takeout whenever one of the following conditions is met (but see balancing double below): *Opponents have previously bid only one suit, and the player did not have chance to double that suit before. *Opponents have previously bid two suits, and partner has passed. *Opponents ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Josephine Culbertson
Josephine M. "Jo" Culbertson (''née'' Murphy; 2 February 1898 – March 23, 1956) was an American bridge player, teacher, theorist and writer. Josephine Murphy was born in Bayside, New York (now in Queens), to parents John Edward Murphy and Sarah McCarthy Murphy. She worked as secretary to the auction bridge authority Wilbur C. Whitehead in the early 1920s and married Ely Culbertson in 1923 (divorced 1938). The Culbertsons developed and taught the Approach–Forcing system of bidding at auction and later at contract bridge, and founded ''The Bridge World'' magazine in 1929. Some time later her name was Josephine Murphy Dillon. Culbertson was inducted into the ACBL Hall of Fame in 1996. Bridge accomplishments Honors * ACBL Hall of Fame, 1996"Induction by Year" ''Hall of Fame''. ACBL. Retrieved 2014-11-16. < ...
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American Contract Bridge League
The American Contract Bridge League (ACBL) is a governing body for contract bridge in the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Bermuda. It is the largest such organization in North America having the stated mission ''"to promote, grow and sustain the game of bridge and serve the bridge-related interests of our Members."'' Its major activities are: * sanctioning games at local bridge clubs and regional events * certifying bridge teachers and club directors * conducting the North American Bridge Championships (NABC) * providing education materials and services * administering the ACBL masterpoints system for tracking player performance * providing oversight for ethical behavior and play *Besides representing the interests of its members with the World Bridge Federation, , it had more than 165,000 members. History The ACBL was created in 1937 by the merger of the American Bridge League and the United States Bridge Association in 1937. At that time, its bridge tournaments were open only ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oswald Jacoby
Oswald "Ozzie", "Jake" Jacoby (December 8, 1902 – June 27, 1984) was an American contract bridge player and author, considered one of the greatest bridge players of all time and a key innovator in the game, having helped popularize widely used bidding moves such as Jacoby transfers. He also excelled at, and wrote about, other games including backgammon, gin rummy, canasta, and poker. He was from Brooklyn, New York and later lived in Dallas, Texas. He was the uncle of activist and author Susan Jacoby, as well as father of James Jacoby, an author and world-class bridge player in his own right. Early life Born in Brooklyn to a Jewish family, he was taught to play whist at the age of six and played his first bridge at ten. During World War I, he joined the army at 15 by lying about his age but spent most of his time there playing poker. Dropping out of Columbia University (where he was in the class of 1922) as a math major to become an actuary, he became the youngest person ever ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Official System (bridge)
Bridge Headquarters was a group of contract bridge experts organized in the early 1930s. The group was organized in July 1931. The Bridge Headquarters was organized as a formal corporation under that name. Representing bridge's "old guard", it stood in opposition to Ely Culbertson's bidding system, and with a stated purpose of standardizing bridge bidding and play. To that end, the twelve members created a system it called the Official System. Culbertson engaged in a war of words against the Bridge Headquarters, culminating in a 1931-1932 challenge match, the so-called "Bridge Battle of the Century", Culbertson and partners against Bridge Headquarters member Sidney Lenz and partners. Lenz lost, and the Official System was eventually superseded by other systems. However, Milton Work's point-count system, an important component of the Official System (and which stood in contrast to Culbertson's more cumbersome honor-count system), constituted the basis of Charles Goren's system which ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
