May 2019 - 23

He attended the prestigious Choate
School and began playing duplicate
before starting MIT in 1965. There he
met Ken Lebensold, a grad student and
skilled player who shared his knowledge with fellow students, including
Mark Feldman, Lou Reich and Chip
Martel. Bramley considers Lebensold
a key influence who helped his game
take off.
Bramley worked for Boeing in Seattle
and then as an options trader in Chicago before moving to Dallas to work
as a risk management analyst. "I've had
day jobs all my life, but they've all been
to support my bridge habit," Bramley
says.
Bramley recently retired as chair of
the Ethical Oversight Committee after
leading it through its most challenging cases that emerged from the 2015
cheating scandals. He has been with
wife Judy for over 40 years. He's a big
fan of baseball and classic rock.
Over 52 years, Bramley has had
several partners, including Lou Bluhm,
Sidney Lazard, Lew Stansby, Bob
Hamman and Kit Woolsey among
others.
"Bart demonstrated an amazing
versatility with many partners over
the years," says Hamman. "He did
well with practically anybody he ever
played with. He's a tough competitor
who has a real ability to concentrate on
just about every hand. There's never an
easy hand against Bart."
Hamman recalls the first time he
played with Bramley, in the 1990
Jacoby Open Swiss in Fort Worth.
They spent about a half hour going over
a card, and their team won the event.
"I felt he got his due when he got into
the Hall of Fame," Hamman says. "He's
a class act."
Bramley is ecstatic to finally get
elected on his 10th time on the ballot. "I'd heard 'no' nine times before,"
Bramley says. "I didn't expect it to be
different this time."
Bramley's favorite accomplishments
are winning Player of the Year, his win
in the 2002 Blue Ribbon Pairs with
Sidney Lazard - his favorite partner of

all time - and the Par Contest, where
he won $17,000 for placing second.
He had made a strategic decision to
use the maximum amount of time per
problem, where errors were 100-point
deductions and time cost a point per
minute. Bramley solved all 12 problems
exactly the same as eventual winner
Michael Rosenberg, but lost on time.
"It takes me a while to get there,"
Bramley says, explaining the time it
took to get his first win in a sectional,
regional and finally an NABC at 32.
"Each step along the way took me a
little longer than what I consider my
peers."

Judi Radin

By the time
Radin was 43
in 1994, she
had four world
championships
and four silver
medals - beginning with a gold
in the World
Women's Pairs
with Kathie Wei-Sender on Radin's
first time at a world championship in
1978 - and has since added a bronze.
In North American events, she has
16 wins and 18 seconds, including a
Vanderbilt and a Reisinger.
Growing up in Detroit, she began
learning bridge at age 7 - when her
family decided to take lessons together
- the same year she started golf. By the
time she was 17, she was a bridge professional with a scholarship to play golf
at the University of Michigan. But she
never arrived in Ann Arbor. When riots
broke out there before her high school
graduation, Radin's mother decided
Michigan wasn't safe and forbid her
from going. Radin had to scramble to
find alternative college plans and managed to get into Barnard.
Moving to New York was a pivotal
event. She had to give up golf because
there weren't any golf courses in the
city, but it was a great place to start
a bridge career. Though she initially
became a stockbroker after college, she

quit because she was getting paid more
to play bridge. Still in New York with
husband Michael, she has also built a
reputation as one of the best theater
critics in the city.
Outside of competition, Radin has
also maintained a successful teaching
practice and, as founder and co-chair
of the Arthur Loeb Cup, an annual
pro-am event, she has helped raise
$500,000 for the Lenox Hill Neighborhood House.
"Judi is a natural," says Stacy Jacobs,
a frequent partner. "A pro's pro. She is a
fierce competitor and a true champion.
She plays fast, she sees situations, and
she rarely makes mistakes.
"Bridge lives in Judi's brain in a way
that it doesn't live in mine. I've seen
her play flawless championship bridge
through illness and injury, minor and
major. Regardless of what is happening around her, Judi Radin can always,
always play."
At the 2013 Fall NABC in Phoenix,
Jacobs was playing with Radin on the
first day of the Women's Pairs. They
were going over the hands that night
when Radin fell ill. She was taken to
the hospital and doctors determined
she had suffered a stroke.
"She negotiated an early discharge
from the hospital and was back in her
chair playing her usual exemplary
game when the board-a-match began
36 hours later," Jacobs notes.
Radin explains she fought her way
out of the hospital because she didn't
want to lose out on her fees for the
events she was booked to play in. "I
don't remember anything about playing that day, but my teammates said I
played good."
In the five years since her stroke,
Radin has added three second-place
finishes in NABC events to her resume.
But the substance of it, she says, has
been in place for 25 years.
"I'm very excited," Radin says about
her election to the Hall of Fame. "It
takes a lot of stress out of your life
waiting all that time. I'm thrilled. All
this wait, all this time, it's still great to
get in."
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May 2019 Bridge Bulletin

23
May 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of May 2019
