Product Description

In 1965, the bridge world was rocked by an accusation of cheating at the world championships in Buenos Aires. The pair involved were Britain's Terence Reese and Boris Schapiro, two of the world's best players. Now, almost fifty years later, the true inside story can be told - the investigation, the accusation, and the very different results of the World Bridge Federation and British Bridge League inquiries.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #231189 in Books
• Published on: 2004-04-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 340 pages

About the Author
Alan Truscott, Bridge Editor of the New York Times since 1964, probably knows more than anyone else about the complex world of international bridge. Revised and updated, this new edition of 'The Great Bridge Scandal' tells the full inside story of the Buenos Aires affair, in which Truscott himself played a central role.

Customer Reviews

A gripping account of a major scandal
As a boy I can remember not quite believing accusations levelled at Terence Reese (a hero from his excellent bridge books) and Boris Shapiro and was happy to believe the British exoneration at the time.
50 years later the late Alan Truscott's book presents a rather different picture. Events are described in chronological order and it is like following a detective story or crime investigation. Sadly, the evidence (including photographs) is extremely compelling and there seems no doubt that cheating did take place. Neither Terence Reese nor Boris Shapiro admitted anything in their life time so we will never know why they behaved as they did. Once I had started reading this book I couldn't put it down until I had read the complete text. The events and thoughts of various people involved is told in a compelling manner and the reader is party to the agonising decisions they had to make. Anyone interested in this piece of bridge history will find a gripping tale described in great detail. I thoroughly recommend this book.

a powerful and memorable work
(from my amazon.com review)

I bought this shortly after it first came out in hardback, and it was truly an eye-opening work. I had a student who was a tournament bridge player some years ago--he dismissed the idea out of hand that Reese and Schapiro, who were certainly one of the top bridge partnerships, would ever cheat. He thought the charges were frivilous, the idea ridiculous. So I loaned him my copy of the book. Truscott has been a careful person. The book details at great length individual hands and you'll see photographs of Reese and Schapiro holding their cards in a variety of ways--fingers were used to indicate the number of hearts that they held. When you sometimes have one finger out, sometimes two, sometimes three, sometimes split your fingers (think of Spock on Star Trek), etc, it can look awkward. My student was convinced by the book, but was a sadder person.

The natural reaction is "Reese is a top player. He doesn't have to cheat". That's very true. But it's also true that baseball players such as Bonds, McGwire, and Sosa didn't "have to" cheat: neither do Tour de France racers, nor did other similar figures. But steroids and corked bats (in Sosa's case) and other drugs were used. If you're in, say, the top 10 in your field, the possibility may arise to improve to the top 3, for example. It may also involve ego and not liking to lose. Truscott's book relates how Reese had boasted to friends (and offered to bet on it) that he could cheat at bridge without anyone being able to detect his methods: this sounds like an ego trip, for there was certainly no need for a person of Reese's ability to cheat. Truscott's book describes previous occasions of cheating in bridge, and it relates the disillusionment felt by people who watched Reese and Schapiro at the table exchanging signals. Hands are shown where the bidding and play--such as the opening lead--make no sense at all unless you know much more about your partner's hand than you should. A hearing was held in England--the chair of which knew relatively little about the game, and so would have been blissfully unaware of when bidding or play would have been unusual. Confessions were basically ignored, and Reese and Schapiro were acquitted. But innocent? Read the book.

Bobby Wolff has a fine new book out: "Lone Wolff" which describes cheating and what might politely be termed "ethical lapses". You'll find in this book numerous cases of where when cheating was discovered in a tournament the culprits were let off. One of the most egregious cases was (as I recall) in the Bermuda Bowl where an Italian team of less than stellar bridge gifts but with a series of remarkable performances were caught exchanging information through foot-tapping under the table. The team was reprimanded, but allowed to continue in the tournament. Reese and Schapiro had vastly more natural talent than this Italian team. Schapiro told the British captain that Reese had pressured him into cheating, so we still have the bewildering question of just why Reese would do such a thing. But we have also seen the fabulously wealthy Leona Helmsley and Martha Stewart dig themselves deep holes over what was (for them) trifling sums. So Truscott's book is a wonderful point to the idea of what you want to believe is not always what you need to believe.

addition for UK readers: Dr Grace, the top cricket player at the end of the 19th century, reportedly would occasionally bully umpires and at times resort to some questionable ethics to improve his statistics (he didn't like being put out, and may from time to time have been unGraceful). Sammy Sosa, one of the leading home run hitters, was caught with a corked bat, in which a hole is drilled down the barrel of the bat and plugged with cork. This is illegal in baseball--it adds distance to fly balls--and results in a suspension when detected (which isn't often).