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Up for sale a RARE! "Contract Bridge" Sidney Lenz Hand Signed 3X5 Card Dated 1936.
ES-6943E
Sidney
Samuel Lenz (1873 – 1960) was
an American contract bridge player and writer. He is a member of
the American Contract Bridge
League Hall of Fame, being inducted in the second (1965) class. Lenz
was born July 12, 1873 in a suburb of Chicago. His parents were John J. and
Joanna L. Lenz. The family moved to New York in 1888 (Lenz would have been 14
or 15) but Lenz returned to Chicago before he was 21, and he was soon
successful in business, becoming owner of a lumber mill and a paper box
factory. Rich by age 30, he retired from business to devote himself to his many
avocations, a principal (but by no means only) one being bridge. In 1910 Lenz
won the American Whist League's principal national team championship. (In his
lifetime he won more than 600 whist and bridge competitions; whist
is a precursor and close relative of bridge.)[4] He learned sale bridge in 1911 from British Army officers while
traveling in India, studying magic and Hindu culture. He achieved
his greatest fame from the so-called "Bridge Battle of the
Century", the Culbertson-Lenz match of 1931–32. This match, in
the heyday of contract bridge's golden age of popularity, pitted Ely Culbertson (the greatest bridge figure of the age and
perhaps of all time) against the Official System championed
by Lenz, which Lenz had helped develop. The Official System stood in opposition
to Culberson's system, which – laid out in his Contract Bridge Blue
Book – was sweeping the bridge world, and the challenge match
attracted a mass audience. Lenz chose emerging great Oswald Jacoby as his teammate. Ely Culbertson mostly
played with his wife Josephine Culbertson. Lenz
and Jacoby led for 43 rubbers (the match was 150 rubbers), but Jacoby, unhappy with Lenz's play, quit after the
103rd rubber, and Culberson ended up the winner by 8,980. The match was
front-page news across the world and widely reported on the radio, sealing
Lenz's fame despite his losing. Lenz retired from tournament play shortly
after, although he remained active in the bridge world in various capacities.
