ABOUT THE PLAYERS 

Pictures on this page (except Larry Cohen & Carolyn Lynch) are by Jonathan Steinberg, who has generously allowed us to post them here. For more of Jonathan's pictures of bridge players go to his photo album  

Carolyn Lynch

Carolyn lives in Scottsdale, AZ, and Marblehead, MA, began playing tournament bridge in 2002. She promptly won her mini-McKenney category nationally the first three years she played and became a Diamond Life Master with more than 100 regional wins to her credit. She has a degree in physics from the University of Pennsylvania and has also patented a chemical process. She is President of the Lynch Foundation. An avid gardener, her garden is Ireland has won an award for the best garden outside the United States. She also enjoys golf, riding horses, and competitive badminton.

Dennis Dawson

Dennis, an ACBL Grand Master, lives in Santa Fe, NM. He won a Bronze medal in the Senior Teams at the World Championship in Monaco in 2003, and also won the NABC Senior Knockout Teams that year. He is a graduate of the University of Texas and has a master’s degree in mathematics from the University of Michigan. After many years in New England, where he was well-known both as a teacher and organizer of bridge vacations, Dennis moved to Santa Fe, NM in 2002. He enjoys reading mysteries when not playing bridge.

David Berkowitz 

A retired stock options trader, David now enjoys life as a bridge professional in Boca Raton, Florida, where he plays lots of golf. In 1998 he and Larry Cohen came as close as it is possible to come to a World Championship without actually winning. In the World Open Pairs, they led throughout the five-session final, only to be overtaken on the last two boards. He also earned a Bronze medal at the 2000 World Teams Olympiad. David has more than fifteen NABC victories to his credit, including the Life Master Pairs twice, the Reisinger, the Master Mixed Teams, and the Vanderbilt. David's wife, Lisa, is a Women’s World Champion, and David often comments, “I am not even the best player in my own house.”

Larry Cohen

Larry and his wife Maria live in Boca Raton, FL, where he can pursue his fanatical interest in golf - he loves watching and also plays a sound game (11 handicap).   Although he is best known as a writer (To Bid or Not to Bid, his first book explaining the Law of Total Tricks, was the world's best-selling bridge book of the 1990s), Larry has also won two World Championship medals and 21 North American titles. In 1998 Larry and David Berkowitz came as close as it is possible to come to a World Championship without actually winning. In the World Open Pairs, they led throughout the five-session final, only to be overtaken on the last two boards. They also won a Bronze Medal in the World Team Olympiad. Larry began playing bridge at the age of six and became a Life Master at 17. He won his first NABC title, the Spingold, at 22. He has also the Spingold again, the Vanderbilt, the Reisinger twice, the Grand National Teams, the Life Masters Men's Pairs, the Life Masters Pairs, and the Blue Ribbon Pairs a record four times. Larry has won the Cavendish Invitational Pairs twice and the Cap Gemini Invitational Pairs in The Hague once.

One of America's leading bridge professionals, Mike spends most of his time in Las Vegas, NV, with his wife Nancy, a former Venice Cup winner. They are the only American husband-wife couple to have won the Bermuda Bowl and the Venice Cup. Mike learned to play bridge during high school vacations by watching his brother Bill, an expert in his own right, teach bridge classes. He is #2 on the all-time Masterpoint Winners' list with more than 50,000 masterpoints. He won the 1976 McKenney Trophy (now the Barry Crane Top 500) with a then-record total of 1815 points. In 1979 he won Bermuda Bowl, and also earned a Silver medal at the 1980 World Team Olympiads. Mike won his first NABC title in 1976 Reisinger, playing on the same team with which he won the Bermuda Bowl three years later. He now has a total of 19 North American titles to his credit, including the Reisinger four times, the Vanderbilt twice, the Spingold three times, the Grand National Teams, the Open Pairs three times, the Men's Board-A-Match Teams three times, the IMP Pairs in 1988, the Open Swiss Teams twice. In addition to his North American titles, Mike has had his name engraved on the Mott-Smith Trophy twice and the Fishbein Trophy once, as the top masterpoint winner at three different NABCs. In 1991, Mike won the IBPA's CC Wei Award for the year's best defensive play. Away from bridge, he is a keen sports fan and was an outstanding baseball player in his youth, being drafted by the Cincinnati Reds.

Eddie Wold