Sidney Samuel Lenz

Background

Sidney Samuel Lenz was born in a suburb of Chicago, the son of John J. and Joanna L. Lenz. The family moved to New York City in 1888.

Career

Sometime before his twenty-first birthday, Lenz returned to the Midwest. A combination of enterprise and good luck made him immediately successful in business, and he soon became owner of a lumber mill and paper-box factory in Wisconsin. At the age of thirty-one he announced his retirement, intending to devote the rest of his life to his athletic and intellectual interests.

Lenz first turned his attention to sports: table tennis, golf, and especially bowling. In 1909 he bowled an average of 240 over twenty consecutive games, a record of long standing. At about the same time he became fascinated by whist, and barely a year later was a member of the team that represented the most important championship of the American Whist League.

The transition to auction bridge, when it became popular in the second decade of the century, posed few difficulties for a player of Lenz's talent; and in 1924 he led a team from the Knickerbocker Whist Club of New York to victory in the first "All America" trophy competition, sponsored by the American Whist League. This team maintained its reputation as the best in the country throughout the period when auction bridge was popular. Lenz's greatest successes, however, came in pairs events, of which he won a great many during his career, including the American Whist League Open Pairs and Men's Pairs in whist four times each, and its Auction Open Pairs Twice. Nevertheless, Lenz's popular fame stemmed less from his triumphs at the table than from his writings. He was the first bridge columnist of the New York Times, beginning in 1923. He also wrote for the humor magazine Judge, of which he was part owner. His most important book, Lenz on Bridge (1926), was an immediate success as much for the informality of its tone as for its clarity of exposition and technical excellence. Lenz's writings on bridge earned him a large income. He refused to play cards for money, explaining that his ability at sleight of hand would cast suspicion on his victories. (He was widely regarded as the best amateur magician in the United States).

By the time contract bridge began its rise to popularity in the late 1920's, Lenz was firmly established as one of the foremost experts at all forms of the game. This circumstance brought him to the front rank of the battle against the growing empire of Ely Culbertson, whose attempt to dominate the new game was viewed with mounting consternation by other professionals. Some of them, including Lenz, formed Bridge Headquarters and promulgated a system of bidding, in which Lenz's ideas were prominent, in opposition to the one recommended by Culbertson. When Culbertson and his wife challenged the combined forces of Bridge Headquarters to a match, ostensibly to test their competing systems but actually for effective control of the American bridge market, Lenz, in partnership with the young New York expert Oswald Jacoby, was selected to represent the Headquarters side. The match, often called the Bridge Battle of the Century, began on December 7, 1931, at the Hotel Chatham in New York. This encounter, lasting more than 150 rubbers, attracted strong public attention. According to one account, "The quondam parlor game of bridge was converted on that night to the status of a national spectacle, comparable to the gridiron, World Series baseball games, or a national political convention. " The match was won on January 8, 1932, by the Culbertsons, with a margin of 8, 970 points. Lenz had opposed them throughout, with a second partner, Commander Winfield Liggett, after a dispute over a bid had caused Jacoby to withdraw.

Although Lenz continued to appear in bridge competitions for a few years afterward (winning the 1932 Eastern States Open Pairs, for example), the result of the match, and the acrimony attending it, diminished his taste for play. He remained a revered member of the bridge community, in his later years often acting as an honorary referee at major matches. He continued to play privately until his death. He also retained an interest in magic, practicing sleight of hand for an hour a day until his last illness. Lenz, who never married, died in New York City.

Achievements

• Lenz won the American Whist League's principal national team championship and his team was awarded with Hamilton Trophy. He achieved his greatest fame from the so-called "Bridge Battle of the Century", the Culbertson-Lenz match of 1931–1932. From the early 1920's on, he also published a large number of articles in bridge magazines and general periodicals, including instructional pieces, humorous essays, verse parodies, and fiction, with and without bridge themes. Lenz's 1926 book Lenz on Bridge is considered a classic bridge manual and a work of literary merit. He was a member of the American Contract Bridge League Hall of Fame, being inducted in the second (1965) class.

Works

More photos

• book

  • My System Of Contrast Bidding
  • Lenz on Contract Bridge
  • How's your bridge?
  • Judge Magazine August 30, 1930 Volume 99, No. 2548

Membership

He was the first nonprofessional elected an honorary member of the American Society of Magicians.

Interests

• Bowling

• Sport & Clubs

  Table tennis, Golf

Connections

Father:

John J. Lenz

Mother:

Joanna L. Lenz