Marshall Miles
It is with sadness that I report the passing of Marshall Miles, at the age of 87. Always an original thinker, he was still making contributions to bidding ideas and theory up to the end of his life. His most recent book, More Accurate Bidding, was published only last year. Marshall won 5 North American Championships, most of them partnering Eddie Kantar, but his proudest achievement was winning the World Senior Teams in 2004, at the age of 78. His books include two that are classics of bridge literature: How to Win at Duplicate Bridge, and All 52 Cards.
Working with Marshall was always interesting — his ideas were often idiosyncratic and non-mainstream. While editing It’s Your Call a couple of years ago I mentioned to Marshall that I had given several of the problems in the book to Linda, and each time she had chosen the same bid he recommended — in each case one that most of the bidding panel had not. There was a pause. ‘Well’, he said, ‘She must be a very good player then.’ After that they played together a few times on BBO, but Linda told me that their styles were too dissimilar for them to mesh will as a partnership — and also that she felt somewhat intimidated playing with such an icon of the game.
The message I received this morning was from Marshall’s email address, and the first thing I noticed was that it had an attachment. My immediate assumption was that Marshall was sending me a new manuscript (roughly an annual event), but sadly that was not the case on this occasion.
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For more information on Marshall Miles please visit the Wikipedia page, a bio on the ACBL Hall of Fame, and his author page on eBooksBridge.com.
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If you want to improve your game, read ALL 52 CARDS. One little tip on defense Maarshall wrote about has paid off several times for me. I played against M and Betty several times, she was very good, and naturally they were very courteous to each other. You could tell they were close.
There is going to be a gathering for Marshall Miles in Redlands at his step daughter’s house on Saturday, February 16th, from 1-3 PM. Please call (909) 335-5944 for information.
I have a well worn copy of “How to win at duplicate bridge” and in a rather better state “All 52 cards”. The latter ranks as one of the finest bridge books ever written and perhaps, because it dealt with play was accepted by a wider audience than his books on bidding. As you say his bidding ideas were non-mainstream, certainly as far as a US audience was concerned. I remember in his early work on duplicate bridge he recommended then a lot of stuff that was very like English Acol (I write from England) which was most unusual from a North American. His later stuff seemed to push the boundaries of 2 over 1 – much more US style but avant garde. A great writer who will be missed. Rest in peace Marshall.