May 2020 - 18

Tickets for Two
Deas, Cohen elected to Bridge Hall of Fame

By a vote of electors consisting
primarily of their bridge-playing peers,
Lynn Deas of Schenectady NY and
Larry Cohen of Delray Beach FL were
selected for enshrinement in the ACBL
Bridge Hall of Fame.

Lynn Deas

Anyone who knows Lynn Deas
knows she is a fighter. Her election
to the Hall of Fame recognizes she is
a winner and inserts an exclamation
mark into a record of bridge excellence
almost four decades in the making.
"I am thrilled," says Deas of being
voted into the exalted circle. "But I am
also terribly sad. Beth should be here,
too."
Beth Palmer, who partnered in
Deas's success for almost 35 years,
died last fall. Deas and Palmer were
put up for Hall of Fame election every
year since their first year of eligibility
in 2013. "Beth and I were more than
partners," says Deas. "We were good
friends."
Curtis Cheek, who is presenting
Deas for induction, says, "Lynn and I
have been best friends and partners
since we first played together 27 years
ago. She already had a Hall of Fame resume then, and was widely thought the
top woman player in the world. Recognition of her career achievements is
long overdue."
Deas has 27 NABC wins and
nine world championships: seven
Women's team events (three in the
Venice Cup, two in the World Bridge

18 Bridge Bulletin May 2020

Games [formerly Olympiad], one in
the McConnell Cup and one in the
SportAccord World Mind Games) and
two in Women's pairs events (World
Bridge Series and SportAccord World
Mind Games). Her trophy case also
includes four silver and three bronze
medals. In 2004, Deas won the Lazard
Sportsmanship Award.
She started playing bridge in high
school and duplicate
in college. A year into
medical school, she was
severely injured in a car
accident. While recuperating, she decided
not to be a doctor but,
instead, to pursue bridge
full time.
"Whether you're
interning as a doctor or
starting out as a bridge
professional, it's going to be a while before
you make any money,"
she reasoned. "Bridge players were as
smart as the medical school people, but
the bridge players were more fun."
Dave Smith, one of Deas's partners,
and Bill Cole, who played regularly
with Palmer, matched the two women
up in 1980. They didn't win right off
the bat, but they did mesh.
Deas credits Cole for helping them
put together an effective big club
system. Though the pair had never
won an NABC event as a partnership,
they were asked to represent North
America as fill-ins at the 1982 World
Championships in Biarritz, France.
"We had no qualifying points and
here we were - nobodies - nobody
knew us," Deas says. "And we won the
silver medal in the Women's Pairs." In

BY SUE MUNDAY

1983, Deas and Palmer won their first
NABC title. The "nobodies" went on
to dominate world women's bridge for
more than three decades.
In the early '90s, Deas began to
experience medical problems. After
winning the 1996 World Women's
Olympiad Teams in Rhodes, Greece,
Deas collapsed, unable to breathe.
"Like a total moron," she says, "I
got back, then turned
around and went to
the nationals in San
Francisco. I came home
feeling like I was going
to die."
Hospitalized in
December 1996, Deas
didn't get released until
the following May. The
doctor's diagnosis:
myasthenia gravis and
muscular dystrophy.
"I was supposed to
be getting ready for the
trials for the world championships in
Tunisia," Deas says, "and here I am -
six months in the hospital, not playing
a card."
The team made qualifying as easy as
possible for her. She recalls her flight
to Tunisia. "I took my medicine and
started choking. That's one of the effects of my illness. The airline stewards called out, 'Is there a doctor on the
plane?' The whole plane stood up. It
turned out there was a medical conference just about to start in Tunisia."
Deas also mourns the absence
of close friend Juanita Chambers.
Chambers abruptly exited from bridge
in 2009 to confront drug and alcohol
addiction. She started easing back into
competitive play in 2014.

May 2020

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