SEEING IS BELIEVING!

Mark Blumenthal’s blog, "Cheating Caught" brought to mind a story about a female Philadelphia partnership whose consistent mind-boggling scores put the glorious world superstars of their day to shame.   They dominated the local women’s events especially.  (In fact, one did exceptionally well — playing with her daughter when her regular playmate was unavailable).

Both of my tales had NJ settings.   I was playing with my Matron of Honor and first real female partner, Helen Smith of Philadelphia, who recently passed away (not to be confused with the world class Rockette and probably still considered the best woman player ever — Helen Sobel Smith).   The scene was an Atlantic City Regional.   Our average two-session score was 209 and I was ecstatic as I could hardly count trump — but we missed winning by a mile to that "lucky pair."   There had been whispering campaigns for many years but in those days, there was a fear of law suits and other recriminations — so that chatter continued — with no attempt at serious investigations.

The following year, there was a Regional in Asbury Park and Norman and Edgar wanted to practice in the Open Pairs so we decided to drive over for the day.   I played with a local friend named Merle who was a pretty decent player; Betty Kaplan played with Jacqui Mitchell and of course, Norman and Edgar.    At dinner the hands were discussed and it sounded like the other two pairs would be among the leaders.   You will find the next statement hard to believe — but I swear it it true !!!!  Their scores came in horrendously and Merle and I (with a shade over average score) were the only ones to make the cut.   That presented a problem as it was not fashionable (or considered cricket) to withdraw – so how would Norman kill the evening while Merle and I played?

Edgar (aware of the rumors about this frowned-upon duo) suggested that Norman and he pull up two chairs and kibitz them for the 26 boards.    Norman was squeamish but Edgar shamed him into it.    The women’s afternoon results were in the 200 area, but not surprisingly at night they were close to two boards below average.   Stage fright?  I doubt it!   Their fun and games were put to an abrupt halt and Edgar and Norman assessed them (at best) as very ordinary above average players whose combined style was much more effective without eavesdroppers.