Rematch In New York

On November 16 and 17, shortly before the start of the Fall National Championships, a team of top New York bridge players will compete against a team from Los Angeles for the SPORTS ILLUSTRATED trophy. The New Yorkers will be out for revenge. Last August in California the Angelenos beat them in an exciting 80-board match. Most insiders considered the result an upset. This time, however, the New Yorkers will be bidding on home ground, the Statler Hilton Hotel in Manhattan.

The two nonplaying captains—Kelsey Petterson of L.A. and Waldemar von Zedtwitz of New York—have arranged their lineups just as Casey Stengel or Danny Murtaugh might if he were running things. Von Zedtwitz, the loser, will field a revised team: Howard Schenken and George Rapee; Harold Ogust and Boris Koytchou; Ralph Hirschberg and Richard Kahn; John Crawford and B. Jay Becker, plus, as a reserve pair, Tobias Stone and William Root. Petterson, the winner, is standing pat. When the spectators assemble before the Bridge-O-Rama electric playing board at the Hilton they will be watching virtually the same Western team that won in August in L.A.

Petterson is making one change. Morris Portugal, who with his wife won the Life Master Pairs Championship, will replace either William Hanna or Meyer Schleifer, one of whom may find it impossible to get to New York. The others on the Los Angeles team will again be Lew Mathe, Ivan Erdos, Ira Rubin, Oliver Adams, Harold Guiver and Edwin Kantar. Warren Blank and Mike Shuman have been named as reserves.

It doesn't make the nonplaying captain's task any easier to realize that in choosing eight players he is eliminating another dozen capable of the kind of play that could win a match. For example, here is a hand defended by former New Yorker Milton Moss and former Chicagoan Art Baron, members of the 19-man Los Angeles squad from which Petterson had to make his choice.

North-South vulnerable South dealer

NORTH

[Queen of Spades]
[4 of Spades]
[Ace of Hearts]
[King of Hearts]
[7 of Hearts]
[3 of Hearts]
[2 of Hearts]
[King of Diamonds]
[Queen of Diamonds]
[9 of Diamonds]
[8 of Diamonds]
[8 of Clubs]
[3 of Clubs]

WEST

[8 of Spades]
[7 of Spades]
[3 of Spades]
[2 of Spades]
[Jack of Hearts]
[6 of Hearts]
[4 of Hearts]
[7 of Diamonds]
[King of Clubs]
[7 of Clubs]
[6 of Clubs]
[5 of Clubs]
[2 of Clubs]

SOUTH