George Sturgis Coffin (September 8, 1903 – March 12, 1994) was an American writer and publisher of books on

bridge A bridge is a structure built to span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or rail) without blocking the way underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, which is usually somethi ...

and other games and a distributor of related books and supplies. He was born in

Waltham, Massachusetts Waltham ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, and was an early center for the labor movement as well as a major contributor to the American Industrial Revolution. The original home of the Boston Manufacturing Company, ...

, and died at Waltham–Weston Hospital near his home in Belmont. A descendant of Tristram's son Stephen Coffin, he was a 1928 graduate of Harvard and 1931 winner of ''

The Bridge World ''The Bridge World'' (TBW), the oldest continuously published magazine about contract bridge, was founded in 1929 by Ely Culbertson. It has since been regarded as the game's principal journal, publicizing technical advances in bidding and the pla ...

'' international problem solving contest. He was also co-founder of the American Bridge Teachers Association (ABTA). Coffin wrote more than 200 books that included bridge, poker,

cribbage Cribbage, or crib, is a card game, traditionally for two players, that involves playing and grouping cards in combinations which gain points. It can be adapted for three or four players. Cribbage has several distinctive features: the cribbag ...

and other card games. At the bridge table he was known for his exceptional endplay technique (eliminations, squeezes and coups) resulting in his nickname "Endplays" Coffin, after his classic books of the same title. He also wrote about fungi, on which he was an authority. Coffin died of congestive heart failure at age 90, survived by his daughter Harriette Johnson of Shelburne Falls, MA, and two grandchildren.

Selected works

* – recognized as a major contribution to the technical development of the game * * – greatly revised edition (1973), revised (1975) entitled ''Bridge Perfect Plays and Match Points Ways''Coffin 1975, p. 144. * * – consolidates the latest versions of the preceding four books into one

References

External links

George Coffin's Collection
by Hugh Darwen (2004) * {{DEFAULTSORT:Coffin, George 1903 births 1994 deaths American book publishers (people) American contract bridge players Contract bridge writers People from Waltham, Massachusetts Harvard University alumni 20th-century American businesspeople