February 2025 - 7

IN Box
Doing it right
One night in the '60s, I found
myself in a makeshift Chicago game
in New York City's Cavendish Club
with Benito Garozzo, Harold Ogust
and Leon Yallouze, a frequent partner
of Omar Sharif. Because nobody
knew how long this game would last,
we cut after every wheel, and I kept
cutting Garozzo. It was one of those
sessions where all I had to do was
follow suit and let him make all the
decisions. As a result, we were killing
them.
It came to a head when, after
a bidding misunderstanding, we
arrived in 6s doubled. To make, I
had to play the trump suit for no losers
with A-x-x in dummy opposite
Q-10-9-x-x in my hand. I played
the ace, and it went low, low, king! I
then played a spade to the 9, the next
hand showing out. I went back to the
dummy and played a spade to the 10.
The queen then dropped the jack.
Making 6s doubled!
Garozzo then said, " Mr. Phillips, I
want you to go home and pack your
bags. I want to take you around the
world playing rubber bridge. "
L. JAMES PHILLIPS
Chicago IL
Club fixation
I can now quit playing bridge
because I'll never have a better hand
than this one I picked up at my local
club recently:
sA 7 hA K dA cA K Q J 10 9 7 3.
My only regret was that I was so
overwhelmed by the clubs that I
opened 6c, as did most of the other
pairs. I could kick myself that I never
saw the cold 6NT! But I had company:
All pairs bid and made 6c.
GARY MOLIVER
Jackson NJ
He went down in his-tor-ee
Bob May (1905-1976) was an
accomplished player who was a
ghostwriter in the early 1930s for
the nationally syndicated column of
Milton Work. Hall of Famer Work
had invented " point-count hand evaluation "
long before Charles Goren.
But Bob May was much more
famous for having penned, in 1939,
a children's story he called " Rudolph
the Red-Nosed Reindeer. " It really
took off in 1949 when a musical version
was recorded by Gene Autry.
In 1951, he created Rudolph the
Red-Nosed Reindeer Enterprises.
This sounds far more lucrative than
ghost-writing for Milton Work.
BOB SANNER
Palo Alto CA
Gold standards
I am upset with the decision to
offer gold masterpoints in exchange
for a $30 donation to hurricane
recovery efforts in the Southeastern
U.S. (Ed.: A reference to the ACBL's
" Gold for Good " games held in
December.)
Before I explain, I acknowledge -
as a North Carolina resident - that
the damage is extensive. It will take
years, even beyond our lifetimes, to
recover or rebuild what was there
before Hurricane Helene. No one
can deny the funds are desperately
needed.
We have many very active bridge
players In our area. There are numerous
snowbirds who spend the summers
in the North Carolina mountains.
This region, until Helene, was
never threatened by a Category 3-4
storm. The flooding was unimaginable.
To see railroad tracks bent
and snapped like twigs, whole downtown
areas in Banner Elk, Black
Mountain and Swanannoa destroyed,
the arts district in Asheville flooded
up to the roofs of the shops, and
small businesses losing their inventory
during the busiest season of the
entire year was devastating. This is
life as it exists today. I know some
bridge players in the Asheville area
who lost their homes or had extensive
damage to their businesses.
I don't argue with raising funds for
relief. There are many people in shelters.
And even more living in trailers
and tents. They need every dollar we
can raise.
The ACBL, however, should not be
selling gold points. This is what these
Gold for Good games were, disguised
as an incentive to get more donations.
It is an insult to those who earned
their gold points through hard work.
It destroys the intrinsic values of the
points earned by playing well and
being rewarded.
For some of us, gold points were
hard to obtain. You couldn't easily
win them, especially for non-Life
Masters who rarely won open pairs
contests before the Gold Rush events
were invented. For some of us, stratified
events didn't exist. You could
only win gold in unlimited events;
you had to play with the big boys. My
last handful of gold points took me
three years to earn.
Devaluing gold points by exchanging
them for cash is a misguided
attempt to get large donations from
ACBL members. Do we really believe
that members wouldn't contribute
without a " golden " incentive?
GRETCHEN K. SMITH
Davidson NC
Ed.: The writer has a point. Most
of the ACBL's special games that
are earmarked for purposes such
as charitable events or Junior
programs simply offer increased
masterpoint awards, either with
black points or a mix of black and
red. The only special games at clubs
that previously offered gold points
were ACBL-wide Instant Matchpoint
games, given for section tops or a
February 2025 | Bridge Bulletin |
7
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February 2025

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