Boris Schapiro - Bridge Career

Bridge Career

At ten, Schapiro started playing bridge for money at school. His first major tournament was in 1929, when he went to the USA to partner Oswald Jacoby in the World Auction Bridge Pairs Championship. The two players were destined to have great and lengthy careers in the coming world of contract bridge. Schapiro's first recorded victory at contract bridge was in the World Pairs Championship of 1932, also with Jacoby. This was before the foundation of the present World Bridge Federation.

Schapiro's entry into serious competitive bridge in Britain was delayed until the end of World War II. His partnership with Terence Reese, which started in 1944, was the basis of his most outstanding period as a player. He was also successful with other partners, the last of which was Irving 'Haggis' Gordon. His bidding in competitive situations was quite outstanding, and his comments featured in bidding competitions in bridge magazines round the world. Bidding judgement and card-play in defence were the strengths of his game.

"The characters of Reese and Schapiro were very different. At the bridge table Reese was the cold calculating machine, driven by logic, but witty and good-natured away from it, though with an acerbic phrase when needed. Schapiro was the player of flair; excitable, always on the move, irascible at the table and often grumpy away from it. He did not mellow with old age. At the 1999 European Senior Teams, opponents who called the referee in a vain attempt to protect Schapiro's partner from verbal abuse were told there were special dispensations in standards of behaviour for any competitor over the age of 90."