“FLEECED” BY “CARDSHARKS”

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 249, 17 July 1937, Page 6 (Supplement)

“FLEECED” BY “CARDSHARKS”

The “Culbertson Contract System” Mr. Ely Culbertson, America's mil-lion-dollar bridge expert, told a “Sunday Chronicle” correspondent recently how three trans-Atlantic "cardsharks” fleeced him of £2O on his voyage to London for the Coronation. “It was the only game I played on board.” said Mr. Culbertson. “Although many distinguished fellow-pas-sengers invited me to play, I politely said ‘No,’ as I wanted complete relaxation from the game. "Then three smartly-dressed men, who looked as though they might be respectable business chiefs, approached me, suggested a game. Immediately 1 sized them up as ‘card-sharks,’ the plague of every liner.

“The temptation to learn something of the tricks of these gentlemen who journey backwards and forwards across the Atlantic in search of ‘suckers’ was irresistible. I agreed to a game.

“It was clear that they did not know who I was. ‘Let’s play contract in the Culbertson system,’ they said. “Strange to say, the system was new to me. It was based not so much on the bridge inference as on deft manipulations of the lingers and palm of the hand.

“After about an hour's play, during which I was down £2O, I told them who 1 was. They were in a terrible state.

“You should have heard me lecture those -poor fellows on the Culbertson system. It’s a lesson they will never forget. * “I also saw to it that they never played another game during the voyage for the sake of my fellow-passen-gers.” Mr. Culbertson is to spend six months per year for the next two years in Britain so that he will develop the Culbertson bridge business there.