Zeckhauser - "A bridge through the years"

By: Scott Taylor

Posted: 10/6/05

If you want to impress someone on a second date, there are several obvious options. Option one - a nice meal. A bit orthodox perhaps, but throw in a bottle of decent wine and you've got the makings for a good night.

Then there's the movie option, opening the door for you to reveal your sophisticated appreciation of film by cleverly weaving into the conversation your opinion of the latest groundbreaking documentary. If you're a bit daring, you might even offer to cook or to go dancing to show off some moves.

Food, drink, movie, dance. These are fairly standard second dates.

One option that might not quite leap to mind is an evening of, well, bridge. Yes, that bridge. The game of tricks and trumps and contracts and pairs. Not exactly a great impression on the second-date.

Unless, that is, you happen to be the national bridge champion and when you walk into the bridge hall, date on your arm, strangers flock to you to offer their congratulations. Well now. That makes an impression.

Hell, being a national champion in almost anything is impressive. But being a national champion in a game that Somerset Maugham described as "the most intelligent card game the wit of man has so far devised"...well, who can resist a guy with that kind of brainpower?

The proof is, of course, in the proverbial pudding. The way Prof. Richard Zeckhauser, 1966 U.S. contract bridge champion, tells it, his date that night was impressed just enough, for just long enough, to overlook his other deficiencies. Thirty eight years later, he and his wife Sally remain happily married.

Talking with Prof. Zeckhauser about bridge can sometimes feel a bit like shooting the breeze with Stephen Hawking about the nature of the universe. But knowing relatively little of the game does not immunize you from his enthusiasm. It's a game he's enjoyed for a long time.

Zeckhauser started playing when he was eleven years old, encouraged by his Aunt Iola and Uncle Benjamin, who happened to be a U.S. champion in bridge and chess.

Zeckhauser became very good quickly, winning the inter-collegiate championship during his undergraduate days at Harvard.

He ascribes his success to a few factors. Playing bridge well requires analytic ability to understand and evaluate probabilities and make informed decisions. It also requires players to put themselves in other peoples' shoes and consider their opponents' situation and strategy.

Finally, it's important to be able to cope well with individual and team disappointment. Indeed, Zeckhauser thinks that over time he has become a worse technical player, but a better partner, in part because of learning to share the successes and disappointments as a teammate rather than as an individual.

His skill at bridge has earned him quite a reputation. Ever heard of Charlie Munger? No...? Neither had I. But I have heard of his business partner, a well-to-do chap named Warren Buffet.

In his book, Poor Charlie's Almanack, Munger writes "The right way to think is the way Zeckhauser plays bridge. It's just that simple." Whoa. High praise indeed.

Zeckhauser is flattered by this reference, though he considers it undeserved. Nevertheless Zeckhauser wouldn't mind using the accolade to convince Buffet and another bridge-playing man in Buffet's income bracket, Bill Gates, to pair up and take on Zeckhauser and his partner in a friendly game. For money, of course.

Yeah - Zeckhauser's got smarts all right.

So, in his illustrious bridge career, does Zeckhauser have a particular highlight? The answer is revealing. It was a local game two years ago where the median age of the players approached eighty and Zeckhauser paired up with Nancy, his eighty-four year old mother-in-law.

They ended up playing an incredible game, scoring an 84% (apparently 65% is considered excellent) and prompting the New York Times bridge editor (who knew?) to invent the term "scoreage"; the product of one's age and score. Zeckhauser's mother-in-law apparently now holds the world record for scoreage.

From learning the ropes from Uncle Ben, to that second date almost forty years ago, to the world scoreage record, bridge has been a long and welcome companion to Prof. Zeckhauser through the years.