Jeff Rubens (born 1941) is an American

bridge A bridge is a structure built to Span (engineering), span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or railway) without blocking the path underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, whi ...

player, editor, and writer of books including ''Secrets of Winning Bridge'' and ''Expert Bridge Simplified''. He is best known for long association with ''

The Bridge World ''The Bridge World'' (TBW), the oldest continuously published magazine about contract bridge, was founded in 1929 by Ely Culbertson. It has since been regarded as the game's principal journal, publicizing technical advances in bidding and the pl ...

'' monthly magazine, as co-editor under

Edgar Kaplan Edgar Kaplan (April 18, 1925 – September 7, 1997) was an American bridge player and one of the principal contributors to the game. His career spanned six decades and covered every aspect of bridge. He was a teacher, author, editor, administrator ...

from 1967 and as editor and publisher since Kaplan's death in 1997. Rubens is from

Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...

Life

Rubens attended

Stuyvesant High School Stuyvesant High School ( ) is a co-ed, State school, public, college-preparatory, Specialized high schools in New York City, specialized high school in Manhattan, New York City. The school, commonly called "Stuy" ( ) by its students, faculty, a ...

in New York City, where he was captain of the math team in 1957, the year he graduated. He has an undergraduate degree from

Cornell University Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...

and a graduate degree from

Brandeis University Brandeis University () is a Private university, private research university in Waltham, Massachusetts, United States. It is located within the Greater Boston area. Founded in 1948 as a nonsectarian, non-sectarian, coeducational university, Bra ...

. He won seven North American championship events in the 1960s-70s, represented North America in the 1973 world championship, and "gave up competitive bridge for family reasons" soon after. Rubens is a retired professor of mathematics and computer science at

Pace University Pace University is a private university with campuses in New York City and Westchester County, New York, United States. It was established in 1906 as a business school by the brothers Homer St. Clair Pace and Charles A. Pace. Pace enrolls about ...

in New York.

Competition

Rubens became an ACBL Life Master at 20 and won two North American championship events (then called "national championships") at age 23 in 1965, the Men's Pairs and Men's Teams. Seven years later he played with B. Jay Becker on teams that won the 1972

Spingold The Spingold national bridge championship is held at the summer American Contract Bridge League (ACBL) North American Bridge Championship (NABC). The Spingold is a knock-out team event that attracts the top contract bridge players in the world. T ...

national championship and the subsequent trial to represent North America in the world championship. Becker was 69, then the oldest participant in a Bermuda Bowl tournament, and famously conservative. According to

Charles Goren Charles Henry Goren (March 4, 1901 – April 3, 1991) was an American bridge player and writer who significantly developed and popularized the game. He was the leading American bridge personality in the 1950s and 1960s and widely known as "Mr. Bri ...

's report,

Becker is an ultraconservative who has often refused to play even so widely accepted a convention as
Stayman Stayman is a bidding convention in the card game contract bridge. It is used by a partnership to find a 4-4 or 5-3 trump fit in a suit after making a one (1NT) opening bid and it has been adapted for use after a 2NT opening, a 1NT overcall, a ...
. Rubens, a math teacher, employs advanced ideas on everything from opening bids to opening leads. Expert selectors would have been hard-pressed to put together a less likely partnership. Yet from their base of operations in the closed room this pair kept sending through perfect results on hand after hand, a performance that even the vaunted Blue Team would have found difficult to top. Certainly their opponents in the Trials could not begin to match it.

At Guarujá, Brazil, they finished fourth of five teams in the 1973 Bermuda Bowl.

Editor

Rubens and Paul Heitner established the short-lived ''Bridge Journal'' in the mid-1960s. It is best known for

Journalist leads Journalist leads are an opening lead convention in the game of contract bridge. The method is designed to solve some problems with traditional agreements regarding opening leads. It bears some resemblance to Rusinow leads but differences exist. Jou ...

. ''The Bridge World'' monthly was established by Ely and Josephine Culbertson in 1929.

acquired it from McCall Corporation in 1966 and served as publisher and editor from the January 1967 issue until his death in September 1997. Some time in 1967 he brought Rubens on board as co-editor. They made the editorial column a monthly and prominent feature.

Bridge accomplishments

Honors

ACBL Hall of Fame This list is a compilation of contract bridge players, writers, administrators and personalities who have been recognized for their skills, achievements or contributions to the game as identified by various specific sources. People recognized by ...

, Blackwood Award 2004"Induction by Year"
. ''Hall of Fame''. ACBL. Retrieved 2014-12-16.
Foundation for the Preservation and Advancement of Bridge (fpabridge.org). Retrieved 2014-12-17.

Awards

* Precision Award (Best Article or Series on a System or Convention) 1977, 1979, 1982

Wins

North American Bridge Championships North American Bridge Championships (NABC) are three annual contract bridge, bridge tournaments sponsored by the American Contract Bridge League (ACBL). The "Spring", "Summer", and "Fall" NABCs are usually scheduled in March, July, and November fo ...

(3) **

(1) 1972 ** Men's Board-a-Match Teams (1) 1965 ** Men's Pairs (1) 1965 * United States Bridge Championships (1) ** Open Team Trials (1) 1972

Publications

* ''Win at Poker'' (

Funk & Wagnalls Funk & Wagnalls was an American publisher known for its reference works, including ''A Standard Dictionary of the English Language'' (1st ed. 1893–5), and the ''Funk & Wagnalls Standard Encyclopedia'' (25 volumes, 1st ed. 1912).Funk & Wagnalls N ...

, 1968); reprint

Dover Publications Dover Publications, also known as Dover Books, is an American book publisher founded in 1941 by Hayward and Blanche Cirker. It primarily reissues books that are out of print from their original publishers. These are often, but not always, book ...

, 1984, * ''Modern Bridge Bidding Complete: introducing the Roth point count'' (Funk & Wagnalls, 1968), Al Roth and Rubens * ''The Secrets of Winning Bridge'' (

Grosset & Dunlap Grosset & Dunlap is a New York City-based publishing house founded in 1898. The company was purchased by G. P. Putnam's Sons in 1982 and today is part of Penguin Random House through its subsidiary Penguin Group. In recent years, through the P ...

, 1969) * ''Bridge for Beginners'' (Funk & Wagnalls, 1970), Al Roth and Rubens * ''Official rules of the Tarotrump card game'' (U.S. Games Systems, 1972), Stuart R. Kaplan and Rubens – ules?"by Stuart R. Kaplan; suggestions for strategy by Jeff Rubens" * ''Test Your Play as Declarer'' (NY: Hart Pub, 1977),

Paul Lukacs Paul Lukacs (born Lukács Pàl; ; 23 April 1918 – 1982) ''Palestine, Illegal Immigration from German-Occupied Europe, 1938-1945 (USHMM)'' was a Hungarian-Israeli mathematician, analyst and composer of problems in the "play of the hand" at ...

and Rubens * The Bridge World ''magazine: Swiss match challenge'' (Oakland: Lawrence & Leong Pub, 1992) * "Edgar Kaplan Remembered", ''The Bridge World'' onthly December 1997 to April 1998 * The Bridge Worlds Test your play'' (

Master Point Press Master Point Press is a Canadian book publishing company located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It grew out of Canadian Master Point magazine (1992–1997), which was published by Ray and Linda Lee. The company began publishing books in 1994. While ...

, 2001)

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Rubens, Jeff 1941 births American contract bridge players American magazine publishers (people) American contract bridge writers Brandeis University alumni Cornell University alumni Stuyvesant High School alumni People from Brooklyn Living people Date of birth missing (living people) Place of birth missing (living people)