Bill Root (bridge)

William S. (Bill) Root (December 12, 1923, Miami, Florida – March 18, 2002, Boca Raton, Florida) was a professional American bridge player. He represented the United States twelve times in international competition, including the Bermuda Bowl in 1967. He was also the author of several bridge books.

Jettison play

One of the most famous hands in his books is a seven notrump contract requiring a very advanced jettison play. High cards often get in the declarer's way, that is they block the effective play of the hand. A solution to these blocking problems is to throw away high cards. This unblocking coup is known as the jettison play.

South in 7NT		♠	A Q
		♥	K Q J
		♦	3
		♣	J 9 7 6 5 4 2
♠	J 10 2	N W               E S		♠	9 8 7 6 5 4 3
♥	10 8 7 4			♥	9 6 5 3 2
♦	J 7 5 2			♦	—
♣	8 3			♣	10
Lead: ♠J		♠	K
		♥	A
		♦	A K Q 10 9 8 6 4
		♣	A K Q

Win the opening lead of ♠J with the ace, dropping the king of spades. Cash the queen of spades, and jettison the ace of hearts from hand. Now cash the top hearts in dummy and jettison the top three clubs from hand! You can now run the clubs to discard diamond losers. This line of play has the advantage of trying out the club suit before seeing if the diamonds run. Due to this particular hand layout, the diamonds don't run because of the 4-0 split, while the clubs run because of the singleton ♣10. If the clubs did not split favorably, declarer could still try to run the diamonds using dummy's ♦3 to get back into declarer's hand.

Bridge accomplishments

Honors

• ACBL Hall of Fame 1997

Wins

• North American Bridge Championships (14)
  • Vanderbilt (4) 1968, 1983, 1986, 1995
  • Spingold (3) 1961, 1966, 1967
  • Chicago (now Reisinger) (1) 1957
  • Reisinger (5) 1967, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1990
  • Men's Pairs (1) 1953

Runner-ups

• Bermuda Bowl (1) 1967
• World Open Team Olympiad (1) 1968
• North American Bridge Championships (9)
  • Spingold (3) 1963, 1974, 1978
  • Reisinger (1) 1966
  • Grand National Teams (1) 1992
  • Men's Board-a-Match Teams (1) 1963
  • North American Men's Swiss Teams (1) 1984
  • Life Master Pairs (1) 1995
  • Open Pairs (1) 1966
• United States Bridge Championships (4)
  • Open Team Trials (3) 1984, 1987, 1992
  • Open Pair Trials (1) 1967

Bibliography

• Root, Bill (1967). Introduction to Bidding. The Alvin Landy contract bridge series. Prentice-Hall (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.), 154p., ISBN 978-0-584-10391-5; 1967, Frederick Muller (London), 154p. 
• Root, Bill (1979). Standard Bidding. Crown Publishers (New York), 96p., ISBN 978-0-517-53622-3. 
• Root, Bill; Pavlicek, Richard (1981). Modern Bridge Conventions. Crown Publishers Inc., 244p., ISBN 978-0-517-54573-7; Three Rivers Press (New York), 244p., ISBN 978-0-517-88429-4; 1992, Crown Publishers Inc., Crown Trade Paperbacks (New York), 244p., ISBN 978-0-517-58727-0. 
• Root, Bill (1986). Commonsense Bidding. Crown Publishers Inc. (New York), 216p., ISBN 0-517-56130-1 (hardcover), ISBN 0-517-56129-8 (softcover); 1995, Three Rivers Press (New York), 216p., ISBN 0-517-88430-5. 
• Root, Bill (1990). How To Play A Bridge Hand. Crown Publishers, Inc.. ISBN 0-517-57457-8. 
• Root, Bill (1994). How to Defend a Bridge Hand. Crown Publishers, Inc.. ISBN 0-517-59160-X. 
• Root, Bill; Magnus, Patricia L. (1998). The ABCs of Bridge. Three Rivers Press (New York), 281p., ISBN 978-0-609-80162-8. 

External links

• ACBL Hall of Fame
• Bill Root international record at the World Bridge Federation