“He’s One of Those” (My Claim to Fame)

I got to the table the other evening to find two elderly women (she ain’t no lady, she’s my opponent) shuffling two of the three boards we were about to play. I sat down and picked up the board in the middle of the table, pulled out the hands and broke the deck, at which time my RHO (I love that term) said: ” That board is made. “  Well, since it was now being shuffled, it wasn’t made anymore.  So I smiled and said that I had recently written a bridge blog describing an incident concerning that very same remark.  I made no mention of what followed the remark, just that it was deja vu.  My RHO looked over to her partner and remarked: ” He’s one of those! ”

My dilemma: Do you call the director now or wait until the situation becomes unmanageable?  Of course you don’t call the cops.  In fact, you just leave them alone.  These misunderstandings happen because someone, as in the above example, was misinterpreting (and taking offense at what was said).

Anyway, after much glaring and rage, our two LOL’s were informed that they were at the wrong table.  They then managed to pick an argument and upset the couple who were just trying to sit in their rightful chairs.  Finally, they left and a sense of tranquility settled over the table.  The balance of nature was restored, and a harmonic resonance filled the air.

Ergo, do you believe in Divine Intervention?…or the rule of Karmic Force?

I do…..

The Little Giant

Gordon Robert Nail ran “a” rubber bridge club in Houston, Texas. That was really an understatement as it was THE club — the cat’s meow. Besides the regulars, all the visiting dignitaries would stop in and play as well. Many a pleasant afternoon of bridge would meld into a quite evening of sipping hard liquor and passing the time talking about life, bridge and the great players with whom I had spent the day. This passage of time was the ritual of my manhood. I met the Jacobys, Crawford, the Lone Wolff, Hamman and Johnny Gerber, as well as a cast of Texas characters that even Michener could not have concocted.

Bobby and Betty Nail had a house off the SW Freeway which, in part, was the rubber bridge club. The tables were covered in a black satin, with elastic edging, so everything stayed flat and true to form. Betty kept a spotless club, the food was wonderful and Bobby ran great games. Bobby had great partnerships: Jim Jacoby, Gerald Michaud and Dan Morse, all of whom he mentored, and the legendary professional, Curtis Smith.

Once, Curtis, a large, burly cuss, asked me if I was in cahoots with the other players in our game. He warned me what could happen to such a varmint, and I smiled and told him what a brave man he was to speak to me as such. He walked over to Bobby and inquired, and Bobby laughed, slapped his hand on his leg and told him I was O.K. It was a favorable sign when Bobby patted his leg. It usually meant he was pondering what to do. It was always good to make him think when playing against him, but never did I want to cause him any delay when we were partners.

He was among the most ethical players in the game and always brought a smile with him. He was a card player extraordinaire and someone special who represented the U.S.A. teams in the 1962 and 1963 World Championships. From his HOF bio: In New York in 1962, John Gerber, Captain of the U. S. team, split the partnerships of Bobby Nail/Mervyn Key and Lew Mathe/Ron Von der Porten, pairing Mathe and Nail in an unusual move that worked well and almost captured the title from Italy. “Gerber,” says Morse, “believed in good card play rather than long-established partnerships. “The next year in St. Vincent, Italy, he again broke up a long-established partnership, partnering Nail with Howard Schenken and benching Peter Leventritt and Jim Jacoby. This move was not so successful and may have cost the Americans the championship.

Bobby was very special, a magnetic individual, who attracted the greats of the game. His bridge kids — Robin Klar, Mildred Freedman (Breed), Johnny Grantham, Jay McKee, myself and later Joan Jackson, Terry Reilly, Ira Chorush and Eddie Wold, would play all day with Houston’s finest — Carol Klar, Harold Rockaway, Mervin Key, Paul Hodge, Dan Morse — and even Benny Fain and Tim Willis on occasion. There were so many countless big names who would just drop in to visit. Rarely would a bridge celebrity visit Houston without making a “guest” appearance — brief though it may have been.

You’ll hear many a story about Bobby. Once Curtis (when they ran together in Kansas City, Bobby’s home town) hustled a couple of fellows into a bridge game by claiming that he could beat them while playing with the hotel doorman. Into the room walked Bobby, just under five feet tall, clad in a doorman’s coat that was dragging the floor. Quite a scene to behold.

Another story, found in his bridge HOF bio, tells of the time in the trials when he pulled a young man of twenty-nine (Jimmy Jacoby) away from the table. During the Pair Trials for the 1964 World Bridge Olympiad, Nail and Jim Jacoby were playing against upstarts Bob Hamman and Don Krauss (the eventual winners) and were performing particularly poorly. At one point in the match, Nail took Jacoby aside from the table. “Are you betting on these boys?,” asked Nail of Jacoby (who was appalled that his partner would even ask such a question) . Before Jacoby could sputter an answer, Nail said, “Relax, Jim. If you are, I just want half the action.” (You have to go a long way to beat that one)!

Bobby was never really a healthy man. He was born with a rare and debilitating bone disease that caused such a brittleness that you could break the bones in his hand with just a handshake. He was the oldest living such individual on the planet, which says something about God keeping him around to make sure things ran right. The greatest honor he ever bestowed to me happened twice in my life. He extended that little paw of his and shook my hand.

He was a giant among men and I loved him….

Meyer Schleifer and a guy named Don Adams

I traveled to Southern California for two reasons: To experience the thrill of body surfing and to play bridge with Meyer Schleifer, in many opinions, the greatest rubber bridge player known.  He was entered into the HOF even though he never won any major event, let alone masterpoints.  Why?  Below is his ACBL bio:

Meyer Schleifer
1908 – 1994

Meyer Schleifer is considered by Bob Hamman and Eddie Kantar as one of the all-time bridge greats. “Meyer was probably the greatest card player who ever lived,” says Hamman.  “He was an extraordinary defender but he was absolutely incredible at dummy play — a true artist and a wizard when he got his mitts on the dummy.”  Kantar agrees. “He played rubber bridge all his life and he was always the best player at the table. He played effortlessly. Meyer was the player.”

Hamman remembers the 1983 Summer NABC in New Orleans.  He and Kantar were playing in the six-session Life Master Pairs.  ”Eddie and I had 10 kibitzers when Meyer came to our table. When the round was over, the kibitzers followed Meyer.  We even won the event but we lost our kibitzers.”  Hamman continues, “There have been three players in my career that I’d call really intimidating — if you could see some obscure way declarer could work it out (to make his contract), you had to be afraid he would work it out.” The three: Schleifer, Harry Harkavy and Billy Rosen.  Schleifer was profiled by Kantar in the December 1972 issue of Popular Bridge. The headline read: “Is this man American’s greatest bridge player?”  Kantar’s answer: a resounding yes.

The Brooklyn-born Schleifer’s first love, he wrote, was chess “and although he knew all the moves at the age of 12, he didn’t start playing in the clubs until he was 15. He was captain of his high school chess team and at the age of 16 drew with the then-world champion, Capablanca, when the latter was playing a simultaneous exhibition.”

He enrolled at Columbia Law School, but when stricken with tuberculosis he moved to Denver to recuperate. In the early Thirties he moved to Los Angeles — where he twice won the Southern California Chess Championship.  Exit chess — enter bridge.

Schleifer, who had been taught bridge by some fellows at his hotel, began working for Tom Stoddard at the old Beacon Club.  “Soon he was playing in the big game,” wrote Kantar.  “That was the ’tenth’ game with Johnny Gerber. It was the best game in the house and Meyer wanted to play in fast company as soon as he could. 

Schleifer took time off during World War II to work at the Columbia Steel defense plant. Later he had a falling out with the management of the bridge club and switched — successfully — to poker for a couple of years. “Then it was back to bridge — rubber bridge. Year in and year out Schleifer supported himself from his own incredible skill at the game.”  This was his most remarkable accomplishment, according to Kantar. “The number of players who have been able to do it can be counted on the fingers of one hand, excluding the thumb, forefinger, baby finger and ring finger.”

Schleifer had a long list of bridge clients and might have become a rich man, says Kantar, “if it weren’t for the track. Meyer was not a gambler.  He knew the odds and played to win. Except when it came to horses. Then he just played and played and played.”

I had the pleasure of spending many an evening with Meyer at the horse track in Los Alamitos.  Often we were joined by my newfound friend Don Adams, who had played with Meyer for years. Maxwell and I became the best of friends after I put him in a six clubs slam that he made.  As I and a few of the Cavendish backgammon players watched, I was told that no one bids a slam that Agent 86 would have to play. He just beamed with pride when he made six.

After that, Meyer and I introduced him to the exciting and fast-paced world of quarter horse racing.  It was quite a sight to see the clubhouse crowds look at Don and start to ask if that was whom they thought it was, to which I would reply “Yes!”  All the while Meyer would be sound asleep. Don would tell us stories night after night about his life:  Woody Allen and their partnership created by NBC.  Great winning and losing bets at the track.  The magic of Barbara Feldon and the phoenix-like creation of ‘Get Smart.’  It’s the famous story of the six minutes that spared Don and his cast from the chasm of oblivion and threw them into the limelight of success.

“Just missed it by that much.” or “Would you believe?”

They were both wonderful men.

Au revoir….

Memories

During my first forty years on the bridge scene, I seldom played. I would be active for a few years and then take a decade off. I would like to start with a few notes about life in the bridge world. I have played more rubber bridge than duplicate, though I love matchpoint play. To me, the best event in bridge is still BAM (Board-A-Match).

There has been only one player who made the technically right play TWICE against me. No other player ever made it even once. The card combination I held was AQx opposite K10x. When I led towards the K10x my LHO posted the J. By playing the J, my opponent had denied me a second entry in the suit ( ex: finesse the 10 and then lead the Q and overtake with the king ). Which one of the great rubber bridge players that I have played against was good enough to make that play?
Here is a list of nominees:

(A) Grant Baze
(B) G. Robert “Bobby ” Nail
(C) Meyer Schleifer
(D) John Gerber
(E) John Crawford
(F) Oswald “Jake” Jacoby

At the Pasadena Regional back in the late 80’s, my team drew a star-studded team led by a HOFer. During the match, a slam was bid at both tables, making at the opponents table while failing at ours. After we compared, our team was discussing the slam hand in the hallway when an absolute stranger threw himself into our midst, injected himself into our conversation and, to boot, gave us both hands involved.

He had played the board the round before against the same opponent who had just nipped our team by a few imps. According to “the powers that be”, her tablecloth gave her enough clout to be excused for the oversight of not shuffling this board. Yes, ” They have already been shuffled. ” was the statement given as we arrived at her table. That statement was true, in the sense that this board was shuffled in the previous round. There would be no committee; no redress. Tough game and clearly, luck is a factor.

The best player I never had as a duplicate partner: Grant Baze.

The best duplicate opponent: Barry Crane. (I would never have wanted to play with Barry for the simple reason that it was more fun to play against him. The rounds were always a battle. He was a ninja (graceful, silent and deadly).

The best tournaments in bridge that are no longer: Bridge Week and any Las Vegas tournament run by the girls, Martha and Grace (be it a sectional, regional or National). Such losses! The decline of the great Las Vegas Tournaments was brought about by a conspiracy fueled by jealousy and greed. The story behind this fiasco is the classic — the one about the goose being slaughtered for all its golden eggs. It’s a woeful tale of behind the scenes skullduggery, manipulation and corruption. I will tell it one day, and lay before the bridge court the names of the handful who have prospered versus a Las Vegas Unit that has suffered.

The best player who is not in the HOF would make for quite a debate, as evidenced by the comments made in other blogs: My favorite would be David Ashley. His deportment at the table was beyond reproach. Never a word did he utter to any opponent or partner. Results were like drops of water running off a duck’s back. It was of no consequence to him, as it was the game itself that he loved. He won several national titles and at least a hundred regionals. But even more meaningful, at least to me, a bridge game with David was a day of fun and adventure. We all miss him…………..