Leveling Up

Bill Neumann learned bridge at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY, becoming an ACBL Life Master in 1972. After a long break from tournament play, he returned eight years ago and has since posted several NABC+ top-10 finishes in the last two years. A decades-long daily reader of The Bridge World, Bill writes about skill acquisition in bridge; he created the Red–Green framework and a companion flash-card system used for training and as a concise alternative to traditional system notes. He lives in Columbia, MD, and works full-time as a Principal Solution Architect and Systems Engineer at Connection (Microsoft Azure & Microsoft 365). Read his series on Red-Green at billneumann.substack.com.

Ida Grönkvist played her first international bridge tournament for Sweden when she was 12 years old and hasn’t been able to stop since. Now 30, Ida lives in Stockholm, where she works as an acting associate judge at The Svea Court of Appeals. Since 2022, she has served as a member on the executive council of the EBL and the chair of the EBL Youth Committee. Outside of bridge, she enjoys reading, running, hiking and choir practice.

Though she couldn’t make time to play the Venice Cup this year, Ida has been a mainstay on the Swedish women’s team since 2016. They won the Venice Cup in 2019 and were second at the World Bridge Games in 2024. She also represented Sweden on several gold medal junior teams.

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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 in touch with him.

If you’re interested in learning more about him, you can contact him via email.

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 August.

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 Reisingers. Bob was a member of the famed Dallas Aces and one of the original members of the fabled Nickell team.

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 and 2001. Some of his many wins include the Bermuda Bowl (2009), the Rosenblum (2002), the Vanderbilt (1999, 2004, 2009, 2014, 2017, 2024), the Spingold (1981, 2001, 2002), and the Reisinger (2000, 2009, 2021). In 2018, Ralph was a first-ballot selection for the ACBL Hall of Fame.

Ralph and his wife, Martha, herself a World Junior Champion, have an adult son, Sam, who was King of Bridge in 2006. Sam and his wife, Jenni, have given Ralph and Martha two adorable future players, Ben and Izzy.

Next to bridge and family, Ralph’s biggest loves are the Pirates and the Steelers.

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 music at Columbia and has performed at Carnegie Hall for 45 years. He has composed several art songs and a score for an off-off Broadway play.

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 Hamman and Kit Woolsey. Bart has written for The Bridge World magazine for decades; he has been a director of the Master Solvers Club for 20 years and writes tournament reports on major events about once a year.

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 California at Berkeley where he met his wife and soulmate, Jan, and great long-time partner, Lew Stansby.

In 1981, Chip won his first North American title, the Reisinger Board-a-Match Teams, with Stansby. The following year they won their first world title, the Open Pairs. Since then, he has won five additional open world championships, a world seniors title, and more than 35 North American titles. After playing with Stansby for 35 years, Chip started a new partnership with his old friend Marty Fleisher about 10 years ago with great success.

Chip served as captain and coach of the world champion Junior team in 1991 and the world champion Senior team in 2005. He was a long time chair of the ACBL Laws Commission, a member of the World Bridge Federation Laws and System Committees, and was on the drafting committee for the 1997 laws. Additionally, he won the Bols Tip Competition and was named ACBL Honorary Member in 2000.

Before he retired in 2013, Martel was a professor of computer science at the University of California at Davis. He helped found the computer science department there and served as one of its first department chairs. In the 1985-86 academic year, he achieved a rare double of winning a world championship and achieving tenure. He continues to work at the college as an emeritus professor.