Inside the Bermuda Bowl by John Swanson

Among bridge autobiographies, my favorites through the years have been those written by Zia, Bob Hamman, Howard Schenken, Pietro Forquet, and Alan Sontag, in no particular order. This book is the latest entry in that genre. Our newer players will not recognize Swanson's name, but he was one of the top US players in the 60's and 70's, first as a regular partner of Richard Walsh, who pioneered the Western 2/1 system used by most of the top Hawaiian players, and later as a partner of Paul Soloway before the Goldman-Soloway partnership was born. The book's title obscures its autobiographical nature, but is not really a misnomer, since most of its emphasis is on the changing methods used in selecting the USA teams for international competition. This will not endear him to past members of ACBL's National Board of Directors, whose decisions appeared, from Swanson's viewpoint, to be artitrary and motivated mostly by political expediency.

Nor will the ruling powers of the World Bridge Federation be charter members of the John Swanson fan club, since the book devotes considerable attention to the various accusations of cheating in international competition: Great Britain's Reese and Shapiro, accused of finger signals by the manner in which they held their cards; Italy's Facchini and Zucchelli, accused of foot-tapping; and Italy's Bianchi and Forquet, accused by another Italian of signalling with the aid of cigarettes. In each of these cases, the WBF handed jurisdiction to the national bodies of the alleged cheaters. Great Britain, to their credit, suspended Reese and Shapiro, but Italy effectively swept both cases under the rug, although the foot-tappers never played for Italy again.

Swanson feels strongly that the fabled Italian Blue Team was cheating, and cites as significant the fact that the Blue Team's winning streak came to an end in 1975, the same year that screens were introduced in Bermuda Bowl competition. Cheating accusations in the USA are rather rare, and are handled very discreetly by the ACBL Board because of the expensive lawsuit which resulted after the much-publicized Katz-Cohen accusation. Swanson chose not to discuss this case, since Katz-Cohen were occasional teammates of his. Their accusation was based not on direct observation of illegal signals, but on an extensive analysis of many boards where they had reached contracts which their accusers felt were unreachable by normal methods. Swanson may be right not to attach much credence to those accusations, since the Katz-Cohen Breakthrough System was highly unusual, featuring a non-forcing 2/1 response and a forcing 1NT response which was unlimited in strength, and was clearly not well understood by their accusers. This book will not improve anyone's bridge game, but is well worth reading if you are interested in bridge administration at the national and international level.