Whether You Win or Lose, It Is Fun Playing Games

By RICHARD WEIZELPublished: October 01, 2000

When it comes to games, it seems there are those who do and those who don't -- enjoy playing them, that is. And then -- in a category all their own -- are those who take their games very, very seriously.

Lessons in Cards and Life

If it weren't for Bobby Fischer, Harold Feldheim of Hamden sometimes thinks he just might have become one of the world's top chess players.

But after competing against Mr. Fischer while the two were teenagers at the same chess club in Brooklyn, Mr. Feldheim took a different path.

''After playing chess with Bobby Fischer I realized early on that there was no point --no matter how good I would get I was realistic enough to know there was no way I would ever beat him,'' Mr. Feldheim said. ''I wanted to become great at a game whereI had a chance to beat anyone.''

So Mr. Feldheim, now 63, turned his attention to bridge. And for more than 40 years he's made a living both beating people and teaching them how to play a game he says is ''a perfect metaphor of life -- where luck, skill, fate, experience and ability often intertwine'' to bring about success or failure.

At bridge, Mr. Feldheim has had a lot more success than failure. He'sranked 63rd by the American Contract Bridge League on its top 500, and is also listed on its top 200 bridge players of all time. He's officially ranked No. 1 in Connecticut.

''He's very flamboyant and takes risks, is very aggressive, and has an uncanny knack for picking his spots,'' said Patricia Hartman of Stratford, a life master player and one of Mr. Feldheim's longest-running partners, having played bridge with him since 1986. ''I've learned far more about bridge from him than anyone else.''

Mr. Feldheim is a Diamond Life Master, which is the elite among the top competitive level in bridge, with more than 200 regional titles and numerous national showings --

he recently won a regional championship in Tunica, Miss. But he insists he takes even greater pride in watching his many students become bridge masters and championship-caliber players.

''As much as I love playing I truly get the most satisfaction watching my students blossom into bridge masters in their own right,'' said Mr. Feldheim. He owned and operated his own bridge club for 11 years, but now lectures and devotes himself to the national tournament circuit, which keeps him on the road about half the year.

He also presents what he calls a ''humanistic approach'' to the game in lectures, online and in five books. His titles include ''Five Card Major,'' ''Negative Doubles,'' ''Tactical Bidding,'' ''Weak Two Bids'' and ''Winning Swiss Team Tactics.'' He is working on a new book that he says will help good players get better by sharpening their focus.

''I love games, but to me bridge is far more than just a game, it's an art form,'' said Mr. Feldheim. ''And in the art of playing bridge I think I've created some pretty good brush strokes.''

Putting In a Good Word

By the time Howard Greenspan was 8 years old and growing up in Fairfield, he loved board games so much he played just about all of them and was so good at Scrabble he could beat most adults.

By age 15 he had won his first tournament and was becoming so obsessed with the game he would try to figure out how many words he could form from a billboard advertisement, a store sign or even the back of a cereal box.

''I'm really a Scrabble nerd; it gets kind of addictive,'' said Mr. Greenspan, 29, of Nor-walk, who is among the top 100 Scrabble players in the country and ranked secondin Connecticut. Last year he formed the Connecticut Scrabble Club, affiliated with the National Scrabble Association, to provide Scrabble enthusiasts in the southern part of the state a vehicle for weekly games, practice and competition.

Mr. Greenspan said that before he established his club, which meets every Sunday from 6 to 9 p.m. at St. James Church in Stratford, a club in Hartford was the only one in the state.

Mr. Greenspan, who has competed in numerous local, regional and national competitions, said that because competing with top players is critical to improving, he used to travel every week to the New York Scrabble Club in Manhattan to keep his game sharp. Now, he can compete with excellent players locally.

''My goal is to be the best Scrabble player in the country,'' said Mr. Greenspan, a marketing entrepreneur who is credited with inventing tag protectors for Beanie Babies. ''I love the competition and our members are terrific. That's one of the reasons we

needed this club -- to provide good competitive-level Scrabble weekly in this part of the state.''

Those who play Scrabble with Mr. Greenspan say he is quick, creative and aggressive. They say he has a particular knack for coming up with words that sound real, but aren't always in the dictionary. They say, however, they rarely challenge him because the words sound, well, like real words.

''He's a tremendous player with a quick mind, probably the best I've played against,'' said Keith Hagel, 55, of Fairfield, who has been playing Scrabble nearly 50 years andis a member of the new club. ''He's very steady and calm; he doesn't get angry and upset when he loses,'' Mr. Hagel said. ''He loves the game, but also knows how tokeep it in perspective. You can see he's always having fun.''

Mr. Greenspan said his passion for Scrabble comes from a combination of being fascinated with words, competition and socializing. ''Those are all the ingredients that make Scrabble one of the most popular games in the world,'' said Mr. Greenspan. ''You can play it if you're 10 or 100, and you can always strive to be better. I love the chall-enge of seeing just how good I can get. I don't want to ever get to the point where Idon't think I can improve.''

Bidding for Memories

Some of Marcia Radler's most vivid memories of growing up in Brooklyn are the sounds of her mother's weekly mah-jongg game, when a group of neighborhood friends would invade the living room to play, laugh and gossip late into the night.

Ms. Radler was fascinated by the steady crashing sound the small, rectangular mah-jongg tiles made as they were tossed across the kitchen table, as the women would talk about family, share stories and speak a strange language of bidding and betting unique to the game's devotees.

''I never got tired of listening to them play,'' said Ms. Radler (who would not give her age) of Westport. ''I think I had a love affair with mah-jongg even before I knew how to play. But when I started to learn how to play at about age 10 I was hooked. I love to play all games, but nothing is quite like mah-jongg.''

She became so taken with what she describes as the game's exciting blend of skill and luck that by the time she was married, living in Connecticut and winning state and regional mah-jongg tournaments in the late 1970's, Ms. Radler started thinking about writing a book on the game.

She wrote ''Learn to Play Mah Jongg'' in 1979 under her former name, Marcia Hammer, and the book was successful enough that it was published in paperback a few years later.

Ms. Radler said that while doing research for the book she learned some fascinating facts about a game that had become extremely popular in the 20th century. She said the perception that it is a game played mostly by Jewish women has a grain of truth, though some well-known men have enjoyed mah-jongg as well, including Tom Seaver, the New York Mets Hall of Fame pitcher, Art Carney, Jackie Gleason, Bruce Lee, Dwight D. Eisenhower and Winston Churchill.

Mah-jongg, invented in ancient China and probably an outgrowth of dominoes, is similar to the card game rummy. For centuries, the game was played by men who made the tiles exclusively of ivory. Today, Ms. Radler said, the tiles are made of bamboo, wood and plastic.

Ms. Radler still plays twice a week -- once at home like her mother did long ago and once at the Rolling Hills Country Club in Wilton.

''I've been playing with her for more than 35 years,'' said Marie Grillo of Norwalk. ''She's one of the best game players I have ever played with. She's very aggressive and seems to know just when to make the right moves.''

Ms. Radler credits a razor-sharp memory with helping her master both mah-jongg and blackjack, which she plays frequently at casinos.

''I play blackjack to make money, and mah-jongg for fun and socializing,'' she said. ''As long as I am strong enough to pick up a mah-jongg tile I will still be playing this game.''

With a Toss of the Dice

With a longtime passion for dancing, Noble Barker co-founded the New Haven Balletin 1985 and is now its artistic director.

But it was one of Mr. Barker's other passions -- backgammon -- that helped him survive financially during his ballet company's early years.

After learning a game he had always thought of as ''just being the one on the back of the checkers board,'' Mr. Barker, now 50, was hooked.

''Once I learned backgammon, that was it,'' he said. ''I was a lifelong addict. I couldn't stop playing.''

It was as a dancer in the Hartford Ballet Company in the early 1970's that Mr. Barker discovered he had an aptitude for backgammon just as it was becoming a national fad. Even in neighborhood games hundreds of dollars could be at stake -- and thousands in statewide tournaments, he said.

''You could make some money at it if you were good enough, especially back in those days when they had tournaments all the time,'' said Mr. Barker, in his prime considered one of the top five players in Connecticut.

''Back in the early days of my ballet company I was able to make enough money to keep me going through some pretty tough times,'' he said.

Mr. Barker grew up in a suburb of Boston and has danced in the Cincinnati, Hartford and Connecticut ballet companies, and has taught master dance classes and been on the faculty of several schools including Yale University and the Educational Center for the Arts in New Haven.

He has also created and produced a number of ballets for the New Haven Ballet and touring company.

Mr. Barker talks about the paradox of devoting his life to an artistic endeavor like dance, while at the same time being part of the gambling world that includes backgammon.

''What always fascinated me about backgammon is how much like life it can be,'' said Mr. Barker. ''Sometimes you win by skill, determination and practice; other times, like in life, you win or lose just because of dumb luck. It's a volatile game that is very unpredictable. But that makes it very exciting too.''

Those who have played with Mr. Barker say he is a top backgammon strategist because he is fearless and takes chances, but is rarely reckless.

''He's got a quick mind and knows when to take a risk,'' said Stephen Orio, who has played backgammon with Mr. Barker for more than 15 years. ''But he also knows when to back off when he's not in a good situation. He's tough to beat.''

While Mr. Barker doesn't play as much as he once did because of the growing success and demands of his ballet company -- as well as the difficulty at times of collecting debts from the people he defeats -- he still finds it hard to resist a game when challenged.

''I'll always love the action of the game,'' he said. ''In a peculiar way it kind of reminds me of the unpredictability of dance -- you never know when you are going to fall.''