The Vanderbilt Trophy

 

 

 

The Vanderbilt Trophy for the Vanderbilt National Knockout Team Championships was donated in 1928 by Harold S. Vanderbilt, who won the event in 1932 and 1940. The Vanderbilt was originally contested annually in New York, as a separate championship, until 1958 when it became part of the Spring North American Championships.

Vanderbilt winners receive replicas of the trophy, a practice initiated by Vanderbilt from the first running of the event and perpetuated by a $100,000 trust fund administered by ACBL under the terms of Vanderbilt’s will. On display at ACBL Headquarters in Memphis, Tennessee, are replicas donated by the families of Caroline Taylor, who won the Vanderbilt in 1928, and Helen Sobel Smith, a Vanderbilt winner in 1944 and 1945.

 

Following are several of the highlights of competing for the Vanderbilt Trophy throughout the years.

Howard Schenken won the Vanderbilt 10 times.

John Crawford won the Vanderbilt 9 times.

B. Jay Becker, George Rapee and Sidney Silodor, each won the Vanderbilt eight times.

Norman Kay and Oswald Jacoby, each won the Vanderbilt seven times.

Edgar Kaplan, each won the Vanderbilt six times.

 

Barry Crane never won the event but had two seconds and a third.

Mr. Bridge, Charles Goren, is also not listed among the winners of the Vanderbilt in spite of his impressive string of wins of the McKinney Trophy, now the Barry Crane 500, during the 1940s and 1950s.

 

Seven women have won the Vanderbilt a total of eight times.

Mrs. Sidney Lovell and Caroline Taylor, who tied Howard Schenken for first-second in 1928 when the Vanderbilt was played as board-a-match teams.

Josephine Culbertson, 1930

Helen Sobel, 1944 and 1945

Ruth Sherman, 1953

Carolyn Levitt, 1962

Edith (Kemp) Freilich, 1963

Helen Sobel and Edith Freilich are the only two women in ACBL history who have won all three major open championships: the Vanderbilt, Spingold and Reisinger. In fact, only 41 players in all have won all three.

 

Oswald Jacoby won his first Vanderbilt in 1931 and his last in 1965.

B. Jay Becker won his first in 1944 and his last in 1981.

This fact has an interesting correlation to the two father-son partnerships who have won the Vanderbilt: Oswald Jacoby and son Jim in 1965 and B. Jay Becker and son Michael in 1981.

Edith Freilich and Billy Seamon are the only sister-brother partnership to win the Vanderbilt, in 1963.

The only three times consecutive win in Vanderbilt history came when B. Jay Becker, John Crawford, George Rapee, Howard Schenken and Sidney Silodor captured the championship in 1955, 1956 and 1957.

 

The first Vanderbilt was played in 1928 and the rank of Life Master was created in 1936. At that time, the first 10 Life Masters could claim 16 Vanderbilt titles and nine second-place finishes. See also Vanderbilt Winners.

 

 

 

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