Leveling Up

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Brian Arlinghaus is the head golf coach at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio, and also consults as a sports psychologist. Brian has a master’s degree in sport and exercise psychology from the Chicago School of Professional Psychology and owns and operates Cincinnati Sports Psychology . Brian started working with bridge players when he was contacted by Matthew and Pamela Granovetter, who put me...

World Grand Master Janice Seamon-Molson is the 6th-ranked woman in the history of the WBF. She has five world championship victories and has four silver medals. She has won 23 North American Championships and finished second 20 times. Janice was inducted into the ACBL Hall of Fame in 2024. Janice will be representing the USA in the Venice Cup at the upcoming World Championships in Denmark in late...

Bob Hamman is one of the all-time greats. He was elected to the ACBL Hall of Fame in 1999 and was the ACBL’s Player of the Year in 1990, 1993, and 2006. He has won the Bermuda Bowl 10 times, with an additional 6 silver medals. He has also won the World Open Team Olympiad, the World Open Pairs, and the Senior Team Championships. He has 54 NABC wins, including 6 Vanderbilts, 15 Spingolds, and 11 Rei...

Ralph Katz was born in 1957 in Pittsburgh, PA, and raised in Steubenville, OH. He started playing bridge at 16. After completing college, he moved to Chicago to trade options. At 22, he won his first NABC title, the Life Master Pairs, and at 24, he won both the Spingold and the Master Mixed Teams at the Summer NABC. Ralph was the ACBL Player of the Year in 2001 and won the Fishbein Trophy in 1981...

Augie Boehm has written for The Bridge World for 25 years and the ACBL Bulletin for 35 years. He has written 10 books, including Bridge Smarts , winner of the 2016 ABTA book-of-the-year award. At 14, he won the first USA Junior Championship in Washington, D.C., 1961, partnered by Hall-of-Famer Michael Becker. Augie is also a concert pianist, classically trained by his grandmother. He majored in mu...

Bart Bramley won the first of his 17 NABC+ events in 1980, with a win in the Men’s BAM (as it was known then). He has also had strong results in World Championships, including a win in the Senior Teams in 2007 and second in the Par Contest in 1998. Bart was elected to the ACBL Hall of Fame in 2019. His partners over the years have included Lou Bluhm, Hugh Ross, Sidney Lazard, Lew Stansby, Bob Hamm...

Chip Martel began playing bridge seriously while in high school in Urbana, IL. He was fortunate to be near the University of Illinois campus where they had good campus games and several strong players willing to help him improve. Later, Chip studied computer science — and bridge — at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, earning a B.S. in 1975. In 1980, he earned a Ph. D. from University of C...

Judith Weiner graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in math and physics. She had the awesome opportunity to work in the original Friendship Seven space program and the development of the first Airline Reservation System. After several decades hiatus to raise her family, she resumed her interest in serious bridge learning and play.

Joel Wooldridge became the ACBL’s youngest life master at age 11; this record has since been shattered and is currently held by Andrew Chen, who made Life Master at 8 years old. Joel was a fixture on the US junior teams, winning the junior world championships three times. He was the King of Bridge—awarded to an outstanding senior in high school—in 1997, which was the year he won his first NABC+ ti...

Adam Kaplan is a member of the USA1 Open team that recently won the USBF trials 4-handed and will be representing the US this summer in the Bermuda Bowl. He has won two U26 World Junior Teams Championships, and has numerous additional medals in Juniors. In open events, he won the 2025 Gold Coast Teams, as well as the 2023 Gold Coast Pairs, and the 2024 European Winter Games Final B. He also stars...

Nabil Edgtton is a member of the Australian national team and regularly attends NABCs. His team was second in last year’s Reisinger. Other impressive finishes include second in the world pairs, second in the world transnationals, and second in the World Bridge Tour final. Nabil has compiled an amazing document that he calls the Mental Edge. It documents all the research he has done about ways to i...

Marty Fleisher is a world champion and was recently elected to the ACBL Hall of Fame. He was the 2013 ACBL Player of the Year, awarded to the player earning the most platinum masterpoints during the year. He took over 20 years off of bridge at the beginning of his career. Since coming back, he has amassed one of the most impressive records in bridge over the last three decades.

Marguerite Levin is a Boston-area clarinetist who performs as an orchestral and chamber musician. In addition, she has had a distinguished teaching career with former students holding noted teaching and playing positions in U.S. orchestras and military bands. She was Principal Clarinetist with the Baltimore Opera Orchestra for over 10 years, a member of the United States Navy Band/Washington, D.C....

Brad Moss is a father, a husband, and a world champion. He grew up around bridge champions and developed an early love for the game. He won the Rosenblum Teams with Fred Gitelman in 2010 and the Bermuda Bowl with Joe Grue in 2017.

Samantha Punch is Professor of Sociology at the University of Stirling, UK. She leads the research project - Bridge: A MindSport for All (BAMSA). In the study Bridging Minds Sam interviewed 60 world class and top players from the USA and Europe about the non-technical aspects of the game. Based on this research, her book Bridge at the Top: Behind the Screens includes interviews with players such a...

Norman Beck is a gambler. He has worked for Bob Hamman at SCA Promotions for 33 years. Before that, he was a police officer, an insurance adjuster, a security guard, a bartender, a bouncer, a writer, a “psychic,” and a magician. Norman learned bridge in 1977 and was playing duplicate within 2 weeks. He used to hitchhike to tournaments and do a magic show to make money for food. He has played with...

David Weiss is an emeritus psychology professor specializing in judgment and decision making who has published two books and over 70 academic articles. His most recent research is about objectively assessing expertise when there is no scoreboard. David has written extensively about bridge, publishing two books and over 60 articles in The Bridge World. Good professor that he is, David brought some...

James Holzhauer is a Diamond Life Master. In 2019 he won 32 consecutive games on Jeopardy and recorded the 12 highest single-game scores in the show's history. He has also starred as one of the resident trivia experts on the ABC show The Chase. He lives in Las Vegas.

Ribs LaMothe is a retired training consultant, specializing in sales and communication skills. His background includes instructional design, focusing on helping people learn. He has also used his skills teaching the game of bridge in the Dallas, Texas area.

Larry Cohen is a 25-time national champion, American Contract Bridge League Hall of Famer, former ACBL Player of the Year, and is one of the ACBL’s "Top 10 Living Most Influential Bridge Personalities."

Boye Brogeland is one of the top players in the world. And an awful lot of fun to talk to! For over 25 years he has been a mainstay on the Norwegian national team as they put up a string of impressive results, the highlight being the Bermuda Bowl championship in 2007 and the European championships in 2008, 2018, and 2024. I highly recommend his book, Bridge at the Edge . And, of course, he earned...

Amber Lin is the 2025 ACBL Honorary Member of the Year, a former Queen of Bridge, and co-coordinator of the USBF’s Online Junior Training Program. Amber won the gold medal in the Mixed Teams at the 2023 World Championships and the silver medal the year before. Her energy and enthusiasm for junior bridge have changed the lives of many young US players. Outside of bridge, she works full time in clea...

Charlie Wilkins is a bridge enthusiast who retired in 2021 after a long career in commercial real estate. Since mid-2017, he has been collecting deals from actual play, where non-experts made technically correct bids and plays that gained lots of matchpoints. He calls these deals “Real World Bridge” to distinguish them from deals that occur in all-expert games, deals that require expert skills, an...

Fred Gitelman is best known as one of the creators of Bridge Base Online and its predecessor, Bridge Base Inc., which produced some of the best and most important educational software of the 90s. Fred retired from top-level tournament bridge in 2019, but during his heyday he and Brad Moss were one of the top pairs in the world, winning the 2010 Rosenblum world championship and several national tit...