September 2007 - 6

Viewpoint
By Brent Manley

We all have our time machines. Some take us
back, they're called memories. Some take us
forward, they're called dreams.
- Jeremy Irons

Journey
Not long ago, I found myself going through a very old set of Bridge Bulletins. The tattered pages were in one volume, covering 1949 through 1954. I was
looking for someone who made Life Master in the Fifties.
I didn't find the name right away, but the trip through that short span of our
past was fascinating. As I read the faded pages, I kept imagining what duplicate was like more than 50 years ago.
Well, you could buy a bridge book by Charles Goren for $1, a book of quizzes on play by George Coffin and Ivar Andersson - billed as "The Culbertson
of Europe" - for $3.
A room at the host hotel for the 1949 Chicago Nationals (what we called
NABCs way back when) could be had for $4.50 per night. The playing schedule for the whole tournament was listed on less than half a page.
Every three months or so, the editors printed a list of all living Life Masters
- there were fewer than 300. The ACBL is well past 87,000 LMs now.
Back then, every new LM was written up. I was interested to read about a
former NFL player, Ace Gutowsky of Oklahoma City, who went off to World
War II, earned his first masterpoint right after the war ended, then went "hell
bent for leather," as the editors put it, in his quest to become a Life Master.
One reason I couldn't easily find the name I was looking for is that the subject was a woman, and I had only her first name. In those days, when a woman
made Life Master - or did anything else noteworthy - she was almost
always listed as Mrs. So-and-so (man's name) Jones, or whatever. There were
exceptions, of course. You never read about Mrs. Al Sobel winning a major
tournament or advertising a new book. It was Helen, thank you. I guess you
had to be really good to be accorded that honor. By the way, we did find the
name we were looking for when we found out her husband's first name.
Yes, bridge was different in those days. It was much more difficult to become
a Life Master, people dressed in their Sunday best every day at tournaments,
and the glimpse of the tournament scene from the pages of The Bulletin back
then suggests that ours was a game mostly for the, shall we say, "upper crust."
Today, we have an amazing array of entry-level games at just about any tournament of any size, plus a sincere, if not always effective, emphasis on good
behavior at the table. Our membership numbers today show steady growth.
Many members bemoan so-called masterpoint inflation and the fact that
pairs games at many tournaments are becoming endangered species, not to
mention rules about Alerts and Announcements. Is our game perfect? No, but
we try our best as we learn from the past and move forward. We hope you will
continue the journey with us.
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Letters to
the Editor
Not so fast
To the Editor:
I enjoyed your July Viewpoint,
encouraging new players to "play up"
in the open games.
I, too, moved quickly into open
games and Flight A tournaments, and
never looked back. I loved playing
against experts. Living in Manhattan,
I regularly faced national champions
- at my club!
I never understood why anyone
would play in Flight B. Why not
play against the very best at every
opportunity? It can only help your
game. My non-LM team even had
the audacity to enter the Spingold
Knockout Teams every summer. We
managed to win one match, eliminating a top team on the first day. What
a thrill!
Now that I'm a bridge teacher and
club owner, I've learned to be very
careful about moving players "up."
Newcomer games are very important
and must be encouraged.
Your newcomer director correctly
recognized you as a future expert.
She was right to kick you out of her
game. In fact, every future expert,
like you, will thrive in an open game.
But the vast majority of players are
not future experts. Many aren't even
trying to win. They're just trying to
remember what 2NT means. They
want to have fun. They chat. They
finger their bidding boxes. They
hesitate about everything, and they
hesitate about nothing. And so what if
they do?
It's no fun for these folks when a
Bridge Bulletin

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of September 2007