Edwin Kantar

Edwin Bruce Kantar (November 9, 1932 – April 8, 2022) was an American bridge player, winner of two open world championships for national teams (Bermuda Bowls), and prolific writer of bridge books and columns. Kantar was from Santa Monica, California.[1]

Biography

Kantar was born to a Jewish family in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He learned the game at 11 and started teaching it at the age of 17, first to his friends and later at the University of Minnesota, which he attended.[2]

Beside the 1977 and 1979 Bermuda Bowls, Kantar won 15 North American Bridge Championships (NABCs) and was World Bridge Federation (WBF) and American Contract Bridge League (ACBL) Grand Life Master.

Kantar started writing about bridge with an article on notrump bidding in the December 1954 issue of The Bridge World.[3] He wrote more than 35 bridge books and was a regular contributor to the ACBL Bridge Bulletin (with two monthly columns), The Bridge World, and Bridge Today. In a survey of bridge writers and players taken in 1994, Complete Defensive Play was among the top 20 of all-time favorite bridge books.[4] Six of his books have won the American Bridge Teachers' Association (ABTA) award for Best Book of the Year.[5]

Kantar wrote at home in California and lectured on bridge cruises. He also taught in the Los Angeles area as well as lectured several times a year in various resort areas in the U.S. and Canada. When not writing about bridge, Eddie could be found at Venice Beach playing paddle tennis, a sport in which he also garnered several trophies. Eddie was the only person ever to have played in a World Bridge Championship and a World Table Tennis Championship.[6][7]

Kantar died on April 8, 2022, at the age of 89.[8]

Bridge accomplishments

Honors

Awards
  • Precision Award (Best Article or Series on a System or Convention) 1981

Wins

Runners-up

See also

References
  1. Francis, Henry G.; Truscott, Alan F.; Francis, Dorthy A., eds. (1994). The Official Encyclopedia of Bridge (5th ed.). Memphis, TN: American Contract Bridge League. p. 661. ISBN 0-943855-48-9. LCCN 96188639.
  2. "Kantar, Edwin". Hall of Fame. ACBL. Retrieved 2014-12-23.
  3. The Bridge World, Volume 26, Number 3 (December 1954), page 16.
  4. (ACBL) Bridge Bulletin, June 2007, page 20.
  5. "ABTA Book of the Year Winners 1982–current". American Bridge Teachers Association (abtahome.com). Retrieved 2014-05-16.
  6. Francis, Henry G.; Truscott, Alan F.; Francis, Dorthy A., eds. (2001). The Official Encyclopedia of Bridge (6th ed.). Memphis, TN: American Contract Bridge League. p. 675. ISBN 0-943855-44-6. OCLC 49606900.
  7. "ACBL Hall of Fame – Edwin (Eddie) Kantar" on YouTube (audio-video). Interview by Audrey Grant. Retrieved 2014-05-16.
  8. "45th World Bridge Team Championships". db.worldbridge.org.
  9. "Induction by Year". Hall of Fame. ACBL. Retrieved 2014-12-16.
  10. Truscott, Alan (July 20, 1981). "Bridge: United States Team Gains A Strong Victory in Israel" – via NYTimes.com.
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