Evening star., 1939-03-26
In Local Bridge Circles
Old Dominion Tournament Opens Friday

AAdA 1sueAeA1otu, MIS. -. r.
Stephen, F. H. Tillotson, j. A. Wal
ton and Lewis r. Watson, jr.
A. p. Stockvis Is to act as tourna-
ment director and r. E. Needham as
tournament manager.
~
Here you have them-the Tip-top
Ten Of Bridge for the 1889 sea-
son as announced by Shepard Bar
clay, pre-eminent bridge authority
and Handicapped, in his eighth an
nual survey of the leaders at the
game. We would no more attempt
to dispute the statement of Mr.. Bar
clay with respect to the best bridge
players of the country than we would
challenge the judgment of a Ken
lucky colonel in the matter of race
horses.
Mr.. Barclay denies, however, that
his rating of the players is an ex-
preston of opinion or effort to ap-
praise their relative skill as bid
ders or players of cards, but the
straight compilation of the record, as
free from anybody's opinion as is the
standing of the clubs at the end of
baseball pennant race.
This is his list: /, Charles H. CO.
rem, Philadelphia; 2, Mrs. Ralph C.
Young. Philadelphia; 3, B. Jay Beck
er; 4, Merwin D. Maier; S, Oswald
Jacoby; 6, Howard Schenken; 7,
Sherman Stearns; 8, David Bruce
Burnstone; 8, Morrie Ellis; tied),
Mrs. H. E. Funk, Cleveland; John r.
Crawford and Charles j. Solomon,
Philadelphia; Mrs. Albert M. Sobel
and Fred D. Kaplan.
All of those whose residences are
not given are New Workers, although
1t is but recently that B. Jay Becker
has changed his home from Phila-
delphia to New York, and Mr.. ia
coby. although originally a metro
politanite, now maintains a voting
residence in Dallas, Tex.
Aside from personalities it is pleas
ing to note that the top two places
in the bridge honor roll 60 to Phil
adelphia players instead, as has been
generally the case, to New Yorkers.
Both Mr.. Goren and sally" Young,
as she is familiarly called by most
bridge players, are well known in
Washington. All of the five players
in the team of Four Aces, whose
daily bridge articles appear in The
Evening Star. are included in the
list. The Culbertsons did not play
in a sufficient number of national
tournaments to enable them to be
competitors in the rating handi-
cap.
There were II national contests
under the auspices of the American
Contract Bridge League during the
season of 1889, three of them re-
stricted to masters who had proven
their strength in the past, three of
them open to all, two for women only
and one for men only and two for
mixed combination of men and
women. Only Mr.. Goren and Mrs.
Young managed to win three vic
tories in them. AS partners they
shared two of the triumphs, the
open match-point fours and the
mixed fours.
Neither Mr.. Goren nor Mrs.
Young favor any kind of artificial
convention for reaching slams or
other purpose. 1t is their opinion
that the time wasted by thousands
of fair bridge players learning such
gadgets, as Mr.. Shepard calls them,
would be immeasurably more valu-
able If invested by those people in
becoming more nearly accurate and
logical on the dozens of bidding
situations that are encountered a
hundred times as often.
While players throughout the
country hold no grievance against
former top-notchers, it may prove
an inspiration to them to know that
New Yorks monopoly of the seasons
championships has been so emphat-
ically broken.
AS the season approaches it's close
the race for top honors in the Fed
eral Bridge League at the Ward
man Park Hotel, between the Arling-
ton foursome and the Rangers. is
narrowing to matter of small frac-
tions. The Arlington team is still
ahead by a margin of OO3 points,
its percentage being .553, against $50
for the Rangers, in the latest COM
pilation of averages made by the di-
rector, Paul E. Golden, with the
Shutters, the Crackers and the Coast
Survey teams following so closely
that the contest is not likely to be