
DATE: Saturday, November 8, 1997            TAG: 9711070125
SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY PAM STARR, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:  162 lines

MASTERS OF THEIR GAME

JIM MURPHY is a professional ``hit man.''

He travels around the country, bumping off opponents with the most potent weapon available: his mind.

In the complex, intricate and often cutthroat game of contract bridge, Murphy is the kind of partner everyone wants but not everyone can afford.

You need more points to earn your life master ranking? Murphy's your man. He'll be your partner - for $200 a session - and you're almost guaranteed a win.

You want to just have some fun?

Find someone else.

This week, Murphy, a Chesapeake resident, has been working day and night at the Mid-Atlantic Regional bridge tournament at the Cavalier Hotel. Three local people have retained his services to give themselves an extra edge in winning.

One of them is Betty Wrenn Hoggard of Norfolk. She recently started trying to acquire master points and realized she needed help. A friend told her about Murphy.

``I had so much to learn it felt like my eyeballs were spinning around,'' says Hoggard, who has played bridge all of her life. ``But now everything just fell into place. I think he's worth it.''

Murphy not only plays for his clients but also for himself. He adores the game.

``I want to win so bad I can taste it,'' says the retired computer programming analyst, who has been a professional bridge player since 1974. ``Some of my partners are doing real well. But I've always loved the challenge of playing with anybody.

``I like winning a lot better than losing.''

Don't we all.

Bridge is not like gin rummy. You can't learn how to play well after one lesson.

Neither is it sexy. It's not the kind of game that attracts young, nubile types. Most of the players are over 50.

You have to be analytical, patient and logical. And speak the secret bridge language that all players know. Using it marks you as a member of an elite group.

That's probably why President Dwight D. Eisenhower loved to play the game, and actor Omar Sharif. Same with billionaire investor Warren Buffett, who reportedly plays bridge on the Internet a few days a week.

Like golf, bridge is an acquired skill that takes several years and many mistakes.

The first thing Murphy did when he discovered bridge at age 22 was read 60 books on bridge. And didn't nod off once.

Three years later, Murphy had earned 300 points, the minimum required to call himself a ``life master.'' That was in 1965.

Thirty-two years and 8,000 points later, Murphy is the highest-ranking local player and no. 71 nationwide out of 180,000 American Contract Bridge League members.

His wife, Eileen, won't play with him anymore.

``I was too hard on her,'' he says with a chuckle. ``She really didn't like it. If I give her a bridge book to read, it'll put her right to sleep.''

To the 1,000-plus bridge enthusiasts playing in the Mid-Atlantic Regional Bridge Conference, which ends Sunday, bridge is not just a hobby, an art or a game.

It's an obsession.

How else could they explain why, for a full week, they're sitting in a crowded room under artificial lights from 9 a.m. to well past midnight?

They shift their weight in chairs that are too small to be comfortable, playing hand after hand of duplicate bridge around tables that were not made for these kind of marathon sessions.

Faces contorted into grimaces, they stare at the cards with an intensity that's fascinating to watch. Some sport red reversible ball caps. ``I love this game'' is printed on one side. ``I hate this game'' is printed on the other.

Steve Robinson of Arlington admits that bridge is an addiction. He has a whopping 22,000 life master points and has written a textbook on bridge called ``Washington Standard.''

``It's an addiction but it's a good one,'' he says. ``It's legal.''

All of this scrunching, squinting, thinking and sitting for several hours in the same position can cause problems. Blurred vision, tension headaches, cramped muscles, sour attitudes - to say nothing of hemorrhoids - are a few of the risks they gladly undertake.

And for what? There is no monetary compensation for winners in most tournaments, just the satisfaction of knowing you're better than the other players.

The focus of the game, in a nutshell, is to win as many tricks as you can with your partner.

Each person is dealt 13 cards and separates them into suits. Face cards have numerical value, as does a ``void'' or a ``singleton'' or ``doubleton'' in a suit. Players then either bid, or give information about, their best suits to their partners, or pass.

If a player has strength in all the suits, a bid of ``no trump'' may be given. That means no suit can be used as ``trump,'' or an ``override.''

One team will be defensive, the other offensive. The team that wins the bid will play the hand and try to make its bid. A bid of one spade, for example, means the team must take a ``book'' of six tricks plus one more trick.

An incomparable high in bridge - what every player dreams about - is bidding and making a grand slam. That means taking every trick.

In duplicate bridge, which is what these attendees are playing, everyone plays the same predealt hands and scores are compared at the end of each session.

Confused? That's just the tip of the iceberg.

Kay Afdahl teaches classes in bridge and says it's not hard to learn. She and husband Darwin, president of the Mid-Atlantic Bridge Conference, met more than 25 years ago at a bridge tourna-ment.

``It's very technical and that scares off a lot of people,'' says Kay Afdahl. ``Bridge players tend to put themselves in a little clique and perpetuate that idea. But people can play when they're 4 and 102.''

It definitely helps to have a ringer like the 55-year-old Murphy if you're serious about getting those master points.

Murphy's first student, in 1974, was Shirley Presberg, author of the newly released ``Death by Contract,'' a murder mystery set at a bridge tournament. They played together three years, and now Presberg has more than 4,000 life master points.

Betty Wrenn Hoggard hired Murphy for this tournament to help her accumulate a few master points. Her investment appears to be paying off: The first night, she and Murphy came in fifth overall and third overall the next morning.

``Betty got a little tired, but she's got some real potential,'' Murphy says.

Hoggard flashes a slight smile.

``I'm not a good player,'' she says during a break, ``but I'm very competitive. Jim is really helping.''

Another professional player at the tournament is Marinesa Letizia from Louisville, Ky. She and her partner won the world championship Venice Cup last week in Tunisia, playing against 17 other teams.

Only 41 years old, Letizia has been playing professionally since she was 27.

``I love the game so much that bridge is what I do for a living,'' says a bleary-eyed and exhausted Letizia, who had flown into Norfolk from Tunisia to play for pay in this tournament. ``If tennis were your passion and you were playing in a tournament, who would you rather have as your partner - your next-door neighbor or Martina Navrati-lova?''

Murphy will continue to teach eager students the fundamentals of the game and travel twice a month to tournaments around the country because ``I've really enjoyed it.''

Sometimes playing for pay takes the fun out of the game, he admits, but he can't imagine doing anything else in his life. He'll keep teaching students the game and travel to two tournaments every month probably until he's 90, he says.

``Occasionaly I get tired when I have to play every session,'' he says. ``You can't really socialize then. I don't have to do this for a living, but I really love doing it.''

His ultimate goal?

Reaching grand life master. Just 2,000 more points and countless tournaments to go. MEMO: For more information on local bridge activities, call the

Tidewater Bridge Club at 467-3595. ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photos]

BILL TIERNAN Photos

The Virginian-Pilot

Annette Berry...

Jim Murphy...

BILL TIERNAN / The Virginian-Pilot

Mike Passell, left, of Dallas and Gene Freed of Los Angeles are

professionals at the Mid-Atlantic Bridge Conference.

Peggy Smith of Danville holds up ``boards,'' waiting for a caddy to

take them to another table. They contain hands that all bridge