First Ten

Unlike tennis, contract bridge has no governing body to grade the year's ten best players. Bridge experts, however, have surprisingly unanimous opinions on the matter. Few would have quarreled more than mildly with the ranking, based on play in last year's tournaments, which Shepard Barclay, bridge commentator of the New York Herald Tribune, made last week for the Saturday Evening Post:

1) Willard S. Karn

2) P. Hal Sims

3) David Burnstine

4) Oswald Jacoby

5) Howard Schenken

6) Baron Waldemar Von Zedwitz

7) Theodore A. Lightner

8) George Reith

9) Commander Winfield Liggett Jr.

10) Ely Culbertson

The top four of the list are the "Four Horsemen," most celebrated contract bridge team in the U. S. Last year they won the National Open Challenge Championship, the Vanderbilt Cup and enough challenge matches to establish unprecedented superiority. When hulking Hal Sims, onetime tennis champion of South America, and wiry Willard Karn, who looks a little like Ely Culbertson, won the National Pair Championship, they put themselves a notch above their teammates. The question of individual superiority was settled in the first Individual Masters' Championship. The tournament was held at P. Hal Sims's house, in Deal, N. J. Willard Karn put up a gold trophy and won it.

If Hal Sims was chagrined at being ranked second last week, he could console himself by remembering that most bridge players still consider him, year in, year out, the best player in the U. S.; that he has won more contract championships than anyone else; that last fortnight David Burnstine dedicated a book (One-Over-One--Walter J. Black, Inc., $1), in which he explained the Four Horsemen's bidding systems, to "P. Hal Sims . . . Master card player of the world. . . ." To Sidney Lenz and Harold S. ("Mike") Vanderbilt, who played in a few tournaments last year, and a dozen others, Shepard Barclay last week gave "honorable mention."

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