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Source:
ACBL DictionaryOswald Jacoby of
Dallas TX, bridge columnist. One
of the great players of all time.
Member ACBL Hall of Fame. First
achieved international
preeminence as partner of Sidney
Lenz in the famous
Culbertson-Lenz Match. Had
already established himself as a
champion at auction and contract.
Next became a member of famed
Four Horsemen and Four Aces
teams. His selection by Lenz over
players of greater experience and
with whom Lenz had practiced
partnerships was early
recognition of the brilliance and
skill that were later to bring
Jacoby to the top of the
ACBL’s list of all-time
masterpoint winners.
Jacoby had two months of Army
service in World War I, when he
was 15, and he was awarded the
Victory Medal. On Dec. 7, 1941 he
was playing in the NABC Open
Pairs in Richmond VA. when the
attack on Pearl Harbor was
announced. He immediately left
the tournament and did not play
again for 4 years. During most of
that time he served as a
specialist in the Navy, with the
rank of lieutenant commander.
When he returned to competition
in 1945, he found Charles Goren
far ahead in the MP rankings. He
had done very little about
returning to the top when he
again returned to active duty in
1950 for service in the Korean
War. He served as a commander in
Intelligence and was a member of
the original staff at the
Panmunjom armistice conference.
This return to service cost him
his place on the American team in
the first Bermuda Bowl matches.
He had however, represented the
ABL in international competition
as far back as 1935, the year
when the Four Aces team defeated
the French, champions of Europe,
in the first official World
Championship encounter. Returning
from 2 years of Korean service,
Jacoby found he had dropped out
of the top 19 MP holders. By 1958
he had managed to move back into
6th place, still far behind
Goren. At that time he decided to
make a determined effort to
regain the #1 position. By 1962,
he had done so. Between 1959 and
1963, he won the McKenney Trophy
4 times in 5 years; the only
player at that time older than 50
to win the trophy. He won it at
ages 57, 59, 60 and 61. In 1963
he became the first player to
acquire more than 1,000 MPs in a
single year. His winning total
that year was 1,034. In 1967, he
surpassed the 10,000-point mark,
at which time he retired from
active competition for the
McKenney Trophy. Almost exactly
one year later he relinquished
his position as top masterpoint
holder to Barry Crane.
Jacoby pioneered many bidding
ideas, including Forcing 2NT,
Jacoby Transfer Bids and Weak
Jump Overcalls. His innovations
have included developments of
Gerber and Blackwood and a
specialized use of Two Notrump
and Three Notrump Responses. His
most recent innovations were the
use of Two-Way Stayman in
connection with Jacoby Transfer
Bids after 2NT opening and after
2-anything-2NT. He invented the
use of 2*H* as a double negative
response to 2*C* with 2NT a
positive heart response and 2*D*
the usual waiting bid. Among his
writings are “The Four Aces
System , What’s New in
Bridge, Win at Bridge with Oswald
Jacoby, Win at Bridge with Jacoby
Modern, The Backgammon Book (with
John Crawford). He also had many
books on mathematics, gambling,
poker and other card games,
including canasta, in which he
had the two best-selling books.
Jacoby, born in Brooklyn on Dec.
8, 1902, left Columbia in his
junior year to become an actuary,
completing the examination of the
Society of Actuaries in 1924 to
become, at age 21, the youngest
person ever to do so. After four
years with Metropolitan Life, he
went into business for himself,
but his success was cut short by
the 1929 stock market crash.
Jacoby’s victory-studded
career includes many oddities. He
played in (and won) his first
auction tournament in July 1929
— the National Team
Championship of the American
Whist League. But he had already
won the first big contract pair
tournament ever played, the
Goldman Pairs event in the
Eastern States Championship held
in February of that year. Later
on, he set a record by winning
the Goldman Trophy 3 times in 20
years. Those were the only
occasions on which he entered.
Afterward, he became a national
champion by winning 2 AWL pair
and team events.
After the Culbertson-Lenz match,
Jacoby was secretary of the
United States Bridge Association
for nearly 2 years - thus being
associated with Ely Culbertson.
Late in 1933, however, he helped
to form the original Four Aces
team, which dominated the bridge
world for the next several years.
During this period, in addition
to American Bridge League
triumphs, he won 2 pair
championships and 4 team
championships of the USBA.
He won a North American
Championship (the Chicago in
1955) with his son, James Jacoby.
He also scored many victories
with his wife of 50 years, Mary
Zita Jacoby. Jacoby was elected
to the bridge Hall of Fame 1965
and was named ACBL Honorary
Member in 1967. Jacoby was npc of
North American teams for 1969,
1970 and 1971. As a result he
became captain of the first North
American Bermuda Bowl champion
teams (1970 and 1971). The United
States had not won this coveted
title in more than a decade. His
North American Championship
titles are as follows: Spingold
1934, 36, 38, 39, 45, 50, 59;
Vanderbilt 1931, 34, 35, 37, 38,
46, 65; Chicago (now the
Reisinger) 1955; Reisinger 1983;
Master Individual 1935; Master
Mixed Teams 1968; Life Master
Pairs 1936; Men’s Teams
1952, 59; Open Pairs 1935, 60,
64; Men’s Pairs 1934, 39,
49. He also won USBA Grand
National Open Teams 1934, 35, 37,
Open Pairs 1936, 37. He also won
ABL Men’s Teams 1931, 32;
AWL Team-of-Four 1929, 31, 33,
Open Pairs 1933, Herman Trophy
1960. He placed 2nd in many NABC
events and won countless regional
titles including the prestigious
Marcus Cup 1955. In 1973 he won
the World Championship of
Backgammon.
In 1950, Jacoby became the daily
bridge columnist for Newspaper
Enterprise Association, serving
several hundred newspapers. He
established a record on April 22,
1982 when his 10,000th article
was printed. (Goren’s name
appeared on more than this
number, but he had not written
any columns for many years before
his death in 1991.) Jacoby wrote
books on poker, canasta, gin
rummy and mathematical odds. He
also continuously maintained a
practice as a consulting actuary,
He served for 6 years as a member
of the Board of Visitors of
Harvard Observatory (for the last
3, under the chairmanship of then
Senator John F. Kennedy) He
became an expert on computers and
was frequently consulted on
questions of tournament
movements, elimination schedules
and scoring. |
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