S. J. Simon

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S.J. 'Skid' Simon (Seca Jascha Skidelsky) (born 1904 in Harbin, Manchuria, died June 26, 1948) was a British author and bridge player.

He was celebrated as a bridge player, winning the European Team Championship in 1948, and also competing in 1939. He won the Gold Cup twice (1937 and 1947), the National Pairs (1939) and played for England in the Camrose home internationals on six occasions, all victories.

He was the joint inventor of the Acol bidding system with Jack Marx and author of the classic Why You Lose at Bridge (1945). Its sequel Cut for Partners (1950) and a book on the principles of Acol, Design For Bidding (1949) were published posthumously.

He was bridge correspondent of The Observer, the London Evening News and Punch.

He is just as well known for his collaboration with Caryl Brahms in a series of comic novels, beginning with A Bullet in the Ballet, which introduced the phlegmatic Inspector Adam Quill and the eccentric members of Vladimir Stroganoff’s ballet company. The same characters appeared in Casino for Sale (1938), Envoy on Excursion (1940) and Six Curtains for Stroganova (1945). Brahms and Simon also wrote what they called ‘backstairs history’ producing their own idiosyncratic retellings of history – Elizabethan (No Bed for Bacon, 1941), Victorian (Don’t, Mr Disraeli, 1940), and Queen Anne to George V (No Nightingales).

Simon was educated at Tonbridge School and the University of London and left behind a widow, Carmel, herself a silver medalist at the 1948 European Bridge Championships, who died shortly after.