Benito Garozzo (born 5 September 1927) [1] is an Italian American bridge player. He won 13 world championship titles with the Italian Blue Team, starting in 1961 when he was added as a last minute substitute for the Bermuda Bowl, [2] playing in regular partnerships with Pietro Forquet to 1972 and then with Giorgio Belladonna. During those championship years he came to be considered by many experts the world's best bridge player. [3]
Garozzo was born in Naples, Italy, at a time when his family lived primarily in Cairo, Egypt, but Naples was a second, summer home of his mother, four sisters and brother. [1] At age six his brother taught him tresette, a partnership trick-taking game with dummy play. He also learned chess from his brother. [1] During World War II, he lived at a sister's home in Naples, where family and friends played partnership games including tresette. During 1943 they started to play bridge with reference to a Culbertson book [1] from 1933. [2] After the war he returned to Cairo "and met better bridge players and I improved my game reading more recent books and playing the dummy on Auto Bridge." [1] In 1984 he settled in Naples [2] where he owned a jewelry business as of 1984. [4]
Garozzo is user sillafu at Bridge Base Online. He has lived in the United States since 1987 and has been a citizen since January 1994. He is divorced with a son and daughter; his life partner for more than 30 years was Lea Dupont [2] of Rockland, Delaware [5] (also Italy and Florida). They were second in the quadrennial, 1998 World Senior Pairs Championship and won a major North American tournament for senior teams in 2009. [5] She died on 6 April 2012. [6]
Forquet and Garozzo used the Blue Club bidding system, which they developed based on the Neapolitan Club that Forquet had used with its creator Eugenio Chiaradia, the "Professor" of the early Blue Team. They wrote one book on the system together, published in 1967 [7] (Il Fiori Blue Team, in Italian, or the Blue Team Club), and Garozzo wrote another with Léon Yallouze (1968, in French). The Blue Team as "Italy" won nine consecutive then-annual world team championships, all of the seven Bermuda Bowl and two quadrennial World Team Olympiad tournaments from 1961 to 1969, retired for two years, and returned to win the 1972 Olympiad.
The Blue Team had used six players without any change in personnel for the latter seven of those ten tournaments. Three of them retired after 1972, including Belladonna's longtime partner Walter Avarelli. Belladonna–Garozzo then established a partnership and co-created [3] their advanced version of the Precision Club system called "Super Precision". With four other players sometimes including Forquet, they won for Italy three more world team championships in succession, the 1973 to 1975 Bermuda Bowls.
The Bermuda Bowl is a biennial contract bridge world championship for national teams. It is contested every odd-numbered year under the auspices of the World Bridge Federation (WBF), alongside the Venice Cup (women), the d'Orsi Senior Bowl and the Wuhan Cup (mixed). Entries formally represent WBF zones as well as nations, so it is also known as the World Zonal Open Team Championship. It is the oldest event that confers the title of world champion in bridge, and was first contested in 1950. The Bermuda Bowl trophy is awarded to the winning team, and is named for the site of the inaugural tournament, the Atlantic archipelago of Bermuda.
Chung Ching Wei was a Chinese-born American businessman who created the Precision Club bidding system in contract bridge.
The Blue Team represented Italy in international contract bridge tournaments, winning sixteen world titles from 1957 through 1975. From 1964 to 1969 and during a 1972 comeback, the team comprised three regular pairs: Walter Avarelli–Giorgio Belladonna, Pietro Forquet–Benito Garozzo, and Massimo D'Alelio–Camillo Pabis Ticci. Eugenio Chiaradia and Guglielmo Siniscalco played in early years; Dano De Falco, Arturo Franco, and Vito Pittalà in late years. The spiritual father, long-time coach, and non-playing captain through 1966 was Carl'Alberto Perroux.
Giorgio Belladonna was an Italian bridge player, one of the greatest of all time. He won 16 world championship titles with the Blue Team, playing with Walter Avarelli from 1956 to 1969 and later with Benito Garozzo. A leading theoretician, he was the principal inventor of the Roman Club bidding system, from 1956, and with Benito Garozzo after 1969 created Super Precision, a complex strong club based method. He was known as much for his mercurial temperament as for the brilliance of his card play; see, for example, Belladonna coup.
Pietro Forquet is an Italian bridge player, one of the most famous in bridge history. He won 15 World championship titles with the Blue Team, playing with Eugenio Chiaradia, Guglielmo Siniscalco and, for the most part, Benito Garozzo. Apart from his excellent play, he was renowned for his nerves of steel.
Robert David "Bob" Hamman is an American professional bridge player, among the greatest players of all time. He is from Dallas, Texas.
Robert S. (Bobby) Wolff is an American bridge player, writer, and administrator. He is the only person to win world championships in five different categories. He is a graduate of Trinity University.
Jeffrey John (Jeff) Meckstroth is an American professional contract bridge player. He is a multiple world champion, winning the Bermuda Bowl on USA teams five times. He is one of only ten players who have won the so-called triple crown of bridge: the Bermuda Bowl, the World Open Pairs and the World Team Olympiad. As of May 16, 2016, he was the fifth-ranking World Grand Master. For decades Meckstroth has been in a regular partnership with Eric Rodwell and together, nicknamed "Meckwell", they are one of the most successful bridge partnerships of all time. They are well known for playing an aggressive and very detailed system that derived from Precision Club.
Eric Victor Rodwell is an American professional bridge player. He has won the Bermuda Bowl representing the United States five times and is one of ten players who have won the triple crown of bridge: the Bermuda Bowl, the World Open Pairs and the World Team Olympiad.
Dorothy Hayden Truscott was an American bridge player, winner of four world championships and the top-ranked woman for many years. She wrote two books on the game in the 1960s and later co-wrote two with her husband Alan Truscott.
The World Team Olympiad was a contract bridge meet organized by the World Bridge Federation every four years from 1960 to 2004. Its main events were world championships for national teams, always including one open and one restricted to women. A parallel event for seniors was inaugurated in 2000.
Walter Avarelli was an Italian bridge player, a member of the famous Blue Team, with whom he won nine Bermuda Bowls and three World Team Olympiads from 1956 to 1972.
Kit Woolsey is an American bridge and backgammon player. He was inducted into the ACBL Hall of Fame in 2005.
Roman Club is an artificial bridge bidding system devised in the 1950s by Giorgio Belladonna and Walter Avarelli of Italy's Blue Team. They used it to win twelve WBF World Teams Championships, three Olympiads and numerous European and National titles. A variant, Little Roman or Arno, was played by their Blue Team-mates Massimo D'Alelio and Camillo Pabis Ticci.
Carl'Alberto Perroux, was an Italian contract bridge official, the founder and long-time non-playing captain of the Blue Team, the most successful team in bridge history. As Blue Team captain he won 8 Bermuda Bowls, 1 World Team Olympiad and 3 European Bridge League teams championships in the period from 1951 to 1966.
Robert "Bobby", "Bob" Goldman was an American bridge player, teacher and writer. He won three Bermuda Bowls, Olympiad Mixed Teams 1972, and 20 North American Bridge Championships. He authored books on bridge, most notably Aces Scientific and Winners and Losers at the Bridge Table, and conventions including Kickback, Exclusion Blackwood and Super Gerber (Redwood). He was from Highland Village, Texas.
Camillo Pabis Ticci (1920–2003) was an Italian bridge player. He joined the national Blue Team in 1963 and played in the Bermuda Bowl tournament with Giorgio Belladonna, whose long-time partner Walter Avarelli was unavailable. From 1964 he played with Massimo D'Alelio, winning 8 world championship titles.
The Dallas Aces were the world's first professional bridge team, organized in 1968 by Dallas businessman Ira Corn. Corn was determined to return bridge supremacy to America, after the domination of the formidable Italian Blue Team for more than a decade. The Aces, in various formations during the years featured stars such as James Jacoby, Bobby Wolff, Billy Eisenberg, Bobby Goldman, Mike Lawrence, Paul Soloway, Eric Murray and Sami Kehela. They won the 1970, 1977 and 1983 Bermuda Bowls, as well as several other competitions. The team slowly disbanded after Corn's death in 1982.
Alfredo Versace is an Italian professional bridge player. He has been a stalwart on Italian teams for two decades and has won many European and world championships. As of July 2014 he ranks fourth among Open World Grand Masters and his regular partner Lorenzo Lauria ranks fifth.
Cheating in bridge refers to a deliberate violation of the rules of the game of bridge or other unethical behaviour that is intended to give an unfair advantage to a player or team. Cheating can occur in many forms and can take place before, during, or after a board or game.
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