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Terence Reese's Biography

 
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John Terence Reese was born in Epsom on 28 August, 1913.

Terence Reese was brought up around cards and started playing auction bridge at six or seven. Reese started playing in bridge tournaments from the age of 14.

He went to Bilton Grange and Bradfield College and then won a classics scholarship to New College, Oxford, where together with Charles McLaren he formed the University bridge team.

Terence Reese gained a double first and in 1935 he started working at Harrods as a trainee. Soon after, however, he started writing for British Bridge World and he started working on the first of what was to be many bridge books, The Elements of Contract (1938).

For twelve years he presented Bridge on the Air on Radio 3.

In 1944 he formed his extraordinary partnership with Boris Schapiro, and in 1948, his most famous book was published, Reese on Play.

Partnering Schapiro, Terence Reese won the European Championships in 1948, 1949, 1954, 1963, and 1964. They won the British master pairs seven times, and in 1955 they won the world championship pairs.

A year later an extraordinary incident happened. During the World Championships in Argentina, Reese and Schapiro were accused of cheating by making signals to each other via how many fingers they held the cards with. Reese has given his account of the incident in his terrific book Story of an Accusation. An alternative view has been presented by Alan Truscott in The Great Bridge Scandal.

Terence Reese married his wife, Alwyn (thirty years his junior) in January 1970. As well as bridge, he also played backgammon, chess, blackjack, golf, and poker, about which he wrote Poker: A Game of Skill.

Terence Reese died in 1996.



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