My Cheating Scandal

by Larry Sherman
March 2016

stuttering spade The year was 1971. A lot was going on in my life. I had just graduated high school in West Hartford, Connecticut. For those of you who count well, you should now know my age after I disclose that I started Kindergarten at age 5 and never stayed back. I had just broken up with my long time high school girlfriend. I had just decided not to attend the University of Connecticut, since I would run into her for the next four years. I had just received my draft lottery number of 72, which made me wonder whether I should begin college at all. My sister had just decided to go to Israel for the next year to teach instead of starting graduate school. I was working at Bradlees, then the East coast version of Target, in the hardware, sporting goods, and automotive departments. In addition to all of those unimportant facts, it was also the year I played bridge for the summer!!!

My friend Barry Spaulding was a friend of a mutual high school classmate of ours, Mike Tulin. Mike is the son of Stan Tulin, then a star in the Hartford bridge community, now of Boca Raton, Florida. Stan finished at number 70 in the 2015 Barry Crane Top 500. I certainly wished he had done better, since it would give all of this name dropping more muscle. Wait, this just in, Stan and partner have just won 100 Platinum master points for 1st place overall at the Lebhar IMP Pairs event in Reno. Anyway, Barry and I played at the Hartford Bridge Club, where the real bridge players play, once a week that summer. In turn, I introduced another friend, Jonathan Katz, to the game, and he and I played at the Hartford Jewish Community Center (HJCC), where the other players play, once a week.

In those days I had a bit of a stuttering problem. My father, who did not stutter at all, told me he used to stutter when he was young. I figured he was trying to ease my mind. My parents took the condition seriously enough to take me to the home of my allergy doctor, who was an amateur hypnotist; well, at least he was practicing to become one. I am not sure what faith they put in a fellow qualified to inject me weekly for allergies to grass, trees, pollen, hay fever, etc. to cure my stuttering problem. He tried to put me under to rid me of this condition, but alas, I wasn’t falling for that. After all, take away my stuttering, and what distinctive features would I have to hold onto, my hook nose?

In any case, back in those days there were no bidding boxes. You pronounced your calls verbally. My stuttering condition was focussed on certain sounds and letters. I recall having difficulty with words that began with the letter “D”, and also words that began with “S”. Thus, bidding spades or diamonds was not always the easiest task for me. I don’t recall this shortcoming having any impact playing against the real players at the Hartford Bridge Club. After all, the opponents were licking their chops at the prospect of us visiting their tables.

The Hartford Jewish Community Center was another matter. Back in those days, the local afternoon newspaper, The Hartford Times, actually printed the results from the previous day’s bridge games. OK, they also printed the box scores from the 10 year old basketball league games, so there you have it. In any case, I recall one particular pair playing there, Ina and Norman Finkel, who took the results at the HJCC game quite seriously. After all, who doesn’t like seeing their names in print? Ina and Norman, particularly Ina if my memory serves me correctly, got it in their heads that whenever I stuttered trying to make a bid, I was communicating a whole plethora of unauthorized information. Well, they did not call it Unauthorized Information back in those days. They would just call the Director and say we were cheating. Yikes. I yearned, I dreamed, I hoped, that every time I picked up a hand I would be looking at a wad of clubs and/or hearts. Those were my best friends! I can not recall how the director handled these rulings. After all, I had a draft lottery number of 72 and was wondering whether to enroll in college in two months or move to Canada.

Back in those days, the ACBL was located in Greenwich, Connecticut. Personal computers were being developed in someone’s garage, but when we scratched we were awarded slips of paper about 2½” x 4”. At summer’s end, this player had earned twelve slips, adding up to the grand total of 1.55 master points. Let’s fast forward our story 35 years. Your author has taken a complete break from duplicate bridge; well, I figured a 35 year break plus a 3,000 mile move might get me away from Ina and Norman’s scrutiny. OK, they would probably have been about 115 years old in 2006, when I happened to stumble into those twelve slips from the ACBL.

The rest is history. After returning to the game, I immediately saw that my stuttering condition pushed the ACBL to institute the use of bidding boxes. I suspect they were pressured by the likes of Ina and Norman.

Cheating amongst professional bridge players has been in the news this past year. The New Yorker even featured an article about it last week. Jonathan Katz and I were never found guilty of any wrongdoing. Removed from the watchful eyes of the Finkels, my stuttering mostly went away. The ACBL even accepted my 35 year old slips worth 1.55 master points when I joined the ranks of Rookie Master. Take that, Ina!