Sport: Cool Helen

A woman took two out of five major titles at the 18th annual summer championships of the American Contract Bridge League: in the world championship master teams-of-four, the U.S. mixed teams-of-four.

Of the 40 U.S. contract-bridge experts who are Life Masters,* only five are women. But the double winner of last week, Helen Sobel, who became a Life Master in 1940, is rated the best tournament player of all.

The wartime manpower shortage has little if anything to do with the supremacy of Helen Sobel. Eleven Life Masters are now in uniform, but the championship sessions at Manhattan’s Hotel Astor showed a better quality of play than in prewar years. (It also set four new attendance records—daily average, 100 tables.) The Culbertson system, basis of all contract bidding, has been modified, streamlined and so vastly improved that oldtime experts are hard put to keep up with the latest bidding methods (the opening two-bid, once the strongest forcing call, is now used as a weak bid by most of the experts, because so few hands have enough honor count to warrant its use). With the changes many new players have reached top rank. The three most promising: 29-year-old Peter Leventritt of New York City, made a Life Master in 1943, who won last week’s world-championship master pairs; George Rapee, bush-haired son of Radio City Music Hall Conductor Erno Rapee, and a Senior Master, who won the 1944 individual world championship; Pfc. John Crawford of Philadelphia, who, when he was 25, became the youngest Life Master.

But the best players by & large are those who apply new bidding methods to years of bidding skill. Year in & year out, Life Masters Charles Goren, Howard Schencken, Sidney Silodor, Waldemar von Zedtwitz and B. Jay Becker dominate the tournament-bridge world.

Better Half. Midway between being an old and newtimer is Helen Sobel. She is a tiny, chic, 34-year-old blonde who looks like Gertrude Lawrence, always wears blue rimmed glasses because of severe myopia. Last week she increased her lead in the race for the William E. McKenney Trophy, awarded to the year’s top scorer of masters points. She won the cup in 1941 and 1942, lost it last year to her favorite bridge partner, Charles H. Goren. This year her prospects look good again—she has 194 points, 22 points ahead of her closest rival, George Rapee.

She was a professional dancer, Helen Martin, twelve years ago, when she met Alexander M. Sobel, who taught her the intricacies of duplicate. Result: within two years she won her first championship match (U.S. women’s pairs); within five years she married Sobel. He soon acknowledged himself worsted, gave up tournament play and turned his attention to revising bridge laws and to his job as executive tournament manager of the American Contract Bridge League. Once a year, handsome, jovial Al Sobel plays with Mrs. Sobel in the New York City married-jouples match, for the Mr. & Mrs. A. M. Sobel trophy. In 1943, out of 40 teams, the donors finished seventh.

Helen Sobel makes no money out of tournament bridge. A.C.B.L. matches prohibit betting and cash awards. Many an expert earns his keep by playing rubber bridge. Mrs. Sobel usually plays at Manhattan’s Cavendish Club. She hates to teach bridge, and seldom does. She also hates to write about bridge, lets Al do it.

*The American Contract Bridge League has five tournament ratings: 1) Junior Master (1 to 9 master points); 2) Master (10 to 24); 3) National Master (25 to 149); 4) Senior Master (150 to 299); Life Master (over 300).