Ely Culbertson - Life

Life

Culbertson was born in Poiana Vărbilău in Romania to an American mining engineer, Almon Culbertson, and his Russian wife, Xenya Rogoznaya. He attended the L'École des Sciences Économiques et Politiques at the Sorbonne in Paris, and the University of Geneva. His facility for languages was extraordinary: he spoke Russian, English, French, German, Czech and Spanish fluently, with a reading knowledge of five others, and a knowledge of Latin and classical Greek. In spite of his education, his erudition was largely self-acquired: he was a born auto-didact.

After the Russian Revolution (1917), Culbertson lived for four years in Paris and other European cities by exploiting his skill as a card player. In 1921 he moved to the United States, earning his living from winnings at auction bridge and poker. In 1923 he married Mrs. Josephine Murphy Dillon, a successful teacher of auction bridge and a leading woman player, in Manhattan. They were successful both as players and teachers.

Gradually the new game of contract bridge began to replace auction bridge, and Culbertson saw his opportunity to overtake the leaders of auction bridge. Culbertson planned a far-reaching and successful campaign to promote himself as the leader of the new game. As player, organiser, bidding theorist, magazine editor, and team leader, he was a key figure in the growth of contract bridge in its great boom years of the 1930s.

Culbertson was a brilliant publicist; his team played a number of famous challenge matches, all of which they won. Two matches were played in the USA: against Sidney Lenz's team in 1931-2 and P. Hal Sims in 1935 (this latter between the two married couples Culbertson and Sims). Four matches were played in England, against Walter Buller's team in 1930, two against "Pops" Beasley's team in 1930 and 1933 and lastly against Col. George Walshe's team in 1934. These matches were typically accompanied by noteworthy publicity in newspapers, on radio and on cinema newsreels, and the hands became the subject of intense discussion on bidding methods.

Later, a match against the other leading team of the mid-1930s, the "Four Aces", did not materialize. Culbertson was the most successful player in the early '30s, but in 1937 his team was finally beaten by the Austrian team led by Dr Paul Stern, in the final of the first World Teams Championship, his last participation in a tournament match.

Culbertson founded and edited The Bridge World magazine, which is still published today, and wrote many newspaper articles and books on bridge. He owned the first firm of playing card manufacturers to develop plastic cards, Kem Cards, and developed and owned a chain of bridge schools with teachers qualified in the Culbertson bidding system. He continued to play high stakes rubber bridge for many years, but gave up tournament bridge in 1938 to write and to work for world peace.