Bill Root

Background

Root was born in New York City and raised in Miami, Florida.

Career

He was from Boca Raton, Florida. Root was inducted into the ACBL Hall of Fame in 1997. The American Contract Bridge League observed in his citation, "Root was perhaps the best known bridge teacher in the world – and has probably taught the game to more people than anyone in history." He died at age 79 in Boca Raton, Florida.

One of the most famous hands in his books is a seven notrump contract requiring a very advanced jettison play.

High cards often get in the declarer"s way, that is they block the effective play of the hand. A solution to these blocking problems is to throw away high cards.

This unblocking coup is known as the jettison play. You can now run the clubs to discard diamond losers.

This line of play has the advantage of trying out the club suit before seeing if the diamonds run.

Due to this particular hand layout, the diamonds don"t run because of the 4-0 split, while the clubs run because of the singleton ♣10. If the clubs did not split favorably, declarer could still try to run the diamonds using dummy"s ♦3 to get back into declarer"s hand. Honors Wins Runners-up Bermuda Bowl (1) 1967 World Open Team Olympiad (1) 1968 North American Bridge Championships (9) Spingold (3) 1963, 1974, 1978 Reisinger (1) 1966 Grand National Teams (1) 1992 Men"s Board-a-Match Teams (1) 1963 North American Men"s Swiss Teams (1) 1984 Master Pairs (1) 1995 Open Pairs (1) 1966 United States Bridge Championships (4) Open Team Trials (3) 1984, 1987, 1992 Open Pair Trials (1) 1967.

Achievements

• ACBL Hall of Fame, 1997 North American Bridge Championships (14) Vanderbilt (4) 1968, 1983, 1986, 1995 Spingold (3) 1961, 1966, 1967 Chicago (now Reisinger) (1) 1957 Reisinger (5) 1967, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1990 Men"s Pairs (1) 1953.