Bridge | 13 December 2018

The other day, I opened a Christmas card showing Santa carrying a sack full of presents, and was immediately reminded of one of my favourite Boris Schapiro stories. Schapiro was famously mischievous, and here his victim was his partner, Terence Reese. He and Reese were, of course, a legendary pair for two decades from the mid-1940s, and won the world championships in 1955. But their personalities couldn’t have been more different: Reese was aloof and dispassionate, Schapiro cheeky and volatile.
 
For some reason, their many trophies were stored at Schapiro’s flat, and one evening, Reese popped round to collect some. Using a pillowcase as a sack, he set off home, but was stopped by a policeman who thought he looked suspicious. The policeman asked him to open the pillowcase, and there he saw the gleaming trophies. Reese told him impatiently that he had won them, and could prove it. He led the way back to his friend’s flat and rang the bell.