System Information

Strul-Becker System Summary Form, ACBL Convention Card

Berkowitz-Cohen System Summary Form, ACBL Convention Card

Martel-Stansby System Summary Form, ACBL Convention Card

About the Players

Aubrey Strul

Michael Becker

Becker served as the first president of the U.S. Bridge Federation in 2001-2002. He is currently the chairman of the International Team Trials Committee since 1996. He served on the ACBL Bridge Hall of Fame Committee from 2000 to 2002 and chaired in 2002. Becker served on numerous Greater New York Bridge Association committees from 1966-1985, including president and vice president. He currently is the Bridge World Problem Editor. As a member of the American Stock Exchange 1979-1994, Becker traded options and trained 50 other ACBL members to do so, including 11 participants in this USBC. Michael and father, B. Jay Becker, are the only father-son to play as partners in a Bermuda Bowl (1973), or to have teamed up to win the Spingold (1972).   He was a member of the Aces Team 1981-82. Mike is the winner of twelve major titles, including the 1983 Bermuda Bowl and nine Spingold/Vanderbilts. He was inducted into the ACBL Hall of Fame in 2006.

David Berkowitz

A retired stock options trader, David now enjoys life as a bridge professional in Boca Raton, Florida, where he plays lots of golf. In 1998 he and Larry Cohen came as close as it is possible to come to a World Championship without actually winning. In the World Open Pairs, they led throughout the five-session final, only to be overtaken on the last two boards. He also earned a Bronze medal at the 2000 World Teams Olympiad. David has more than fifteen NABC victories to his credit, including the Life Master Pairs twice, the Reisinger, the Master Mixed Teams, and the Vanderbilt. David's wife, Lisa, is a Women’s World Champion, and David often comments, “I am not even the best player in my own house.”

Larry Cohen

Larry and his wife Maria live in Boca Raton, FL, where he can pursue his fanatical interest in golf - he loves watching and also plays a sound game (11 handicap).   Although he is best known as a writer (To Bid or Not to Bid, his first book explaining the Law of Total Tricks, was the world's best-selling bridge book of the 1990s), Larry has also won two World Championship medals and 21 North American titles. In 1998 Larry and David Berkowitz came as close as it is possible to come to a World Championship without actually winning. In the World Open Pairs, they led throughout the five-session final, only to be overtaken on the last two boards. They also won a Bronze Medal in the World Team Olympiad. Larry began playing bridge at the age of six and became a Life Master at 17. He won his first NABC title, the Spingold, at 22. He has also the Spingold again, the Vanderbilt, the Reisinger twice, the Grand National Teams, the Life Masters Men's Pairs, the Life Masters Pairs, and the Blue Ribbon Pairs a record four times. Larry has won the Cavendish Invitational Pairs twice and the Cap Gemini Invitational Pairs in The Hague once. Larry Cohen has an extensive website here with information about himself and also lots of useful bridge stuff. Well worth a visit.

Chip Martel

Chip Martel is a Professor of Computer Science at the University of California, Davis. A World Grand Master, ranked tenth in World lifetime ranking (sixteenth in current performance ranking), Chip has won five world championships and placed second three times. He has also won over 25 North American championships and U.S. Bridge Championships (“Trials”), most of them in partnership with Lew Stansby. In January 2007, Chip and Lew will mark the thirtieth anniversary of their partnership, one of the longest running in bridge history. Chip also has an outstanding record with other partners, including wife Jan, USBF president. Chip and Jan recently teamed with Lew and JoAnna Stansby and Kit and Sally Woolsey to finish second in the North American Open Teams in Chicago. Chip is currently chair of the ACBL Laws Commission. A favorite hobby is revising his bidding system (“Chip abhors a bid without a meaning,” friends say) and devising defenses to methods played most commonly outside the United States.

Lew Stansby

Lew Stansby, former commodities trader and current professional bridge player, lives in Castro Valley, California, with wife and fellow national champion JoAnna. Since winning the Reisinger in 1965, Lew has won more than thirty national championships and five Open and two Senior world championships, and has finished second three times. Most of these championships over the past thirty years have been won in partnership with Chip Martel, but Lew also has an outstanding record with other partners, including wife JoAnna. Their most recent accomplishment was second-place finish in the North American Open Teams in Chicago, playing with Chip and Jan Martel and Kit and Sally Woolsey. Lew is a World Grand Master, ranked ninth in lifetime ranking (18th in current performance ranking). Tall and softspoken, Lew is known for his love of games of almost all kinds and his incredible memory for bridge hands, even those from long-ago events he neglected to win.