September 2011 - 6

Viewpoint
By Brent Manley, editor@acbl.org

Choose a job you love, and you will never
have to work a day in your life.
- Confucius

Letters to
the Editor

Goal line in view
Last year, I ran a marathon in Huntington WV, sponsored in part by Marshall
University (the Thundering Herd). I really enjoyed the final 100 yards.
Right at the end, I entered the football stadium, ran around a track and then
from one end of the football field to the other carrying a football that was
handed to me. I "scored" a touchdown as I crossed the finish line.
Since late 2005, the "marathon" of the project known as the 7th edition of
The Official Encyclopedia of Bridge has occupied a lot of my time, especially
the past two years. The finish line is now in view - and it looks really good.
If you are reading this after Aug. 31, the book will have gone to the printer.
We're keeping our fingers crossed.
It has been a team effort, and as we wait for the proofs, I owe special thanks
to Mark Horton, Barry Rigal and Tracey Yarbro.
Our friends at Baron Barclay Bridge Supply are responsible for the printing,
and plans are to roll the book out for the holiday season.
I have added some late arrivals, notably an article by a Dutchman, Bob van
de Velde, suggesting that the origin of our game was earlier than authorities on
the subject believed.
The assumption that bridge has its roots in a Russian card game called
biritch (or Russian Whist) was not shared by all, despite the publication in
1886 of a pamphlet by John Collinson on the Russian game and the similarities
to the game we play today. Speculation remained that bridge originated elsewhere, possibly in Constantinople, Egypt (Alexandria or Cairo) or India.
Now, according to van de Velde, a Belgian by the name of Hans Secelle has
found an 1869 article by an Austrian writer, Christian Vanderheid, describing a
Russian game called yeralash (there are a variety of spellings) that is remarkably similar to contract bridge.
The game Vanderheid described had a rudimentary form of bidding, play in
notrump, a suit hierarchy, slam bonuses, doubling and redoubling, and scoring
above the line.
Van de Velde notes that if the game of yeralash was developed to the point
described in Vanderheid's 1869 article, its beginnings must have been much
earlier, probably before the middle of that century.
Now the search is on to see which game, if any, preceded yeralash, but don't
worry - we're still calling our game bridge.
r
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6 Bridge Bulletin September 2011

Missing cards
To the Editor:
At NABCs, there are regular notices
in the Daily Bulletin regarding the
regulation requiring two identical
convention cards for each pair, placed
on the table. I am deaf, so I rely on
the convention cards. In my experience, however, the regulation is not
strictly enforced. If I ask for players
to comply, they are offended and call
the director.
At a recent NABC, I walked through
several sections and found that the
vast majority of tables did not comply.
Perhaps it is time to rescind that order
- or perhaps educate the directors?
JUDY BRAMLEY
Dallas TX

How random?
To the Editor:
I'm writing in regard to the letter in
the June issue (page 7) about computer-dealt hands.
The question is whether the ACBL
hands are random. Let's look at some
numbers. From the ACBL's own
web site, we can find that a huge
number of deals can be generated
as the random seed is 2^47, that is
140,737,488,355,328 or 1.4x10^14
possible deals. The seed is equal to
the largest possible number of unique
deals that can be generated.
It is true that the total number of
possible deals is closer to 2^96, but
there are 53,644,737,765,488,792,839,
237,440,000 or 5.3644x10^28 possible

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of September 2011