Jeremy Flint 1928-1990 by Barnet Shenkin prev/next

Jeremy Flint

Flint was the professional’s professional. He had a number of great partnerships Including Jonathan Cansino, Terence Reese, Irving Rose and Rob Sheehan.

He made a living primarily from playing rubber bridge but was a tremendously talented duplicate player. He loved gourmet food and wine He also loved to bet on horses and studied them.

He and Jonathan Cansino played set against Belladonna and Garozzo and Omar Sharif for a huge stake in London for a hundred rubbers. The Italian’s won by a small margin. There were backers on both sides and the match caused great public interest. Garozzo remembers flying into London on a private plane for the match and was impressed particularly by Cansino.

Flint along with Rose played on the same British team as Michael Rosenberg and myself in 1977 in Ostend Belguim. On a very choppy crossing on the way back he let us into some secrets of the Bridge World. We won a bronze medal on this occasion but did poorly in the European Championship of the same year.

I had the pleasure to partner Flint in a pairs game in Tokyo. There were big prizes. We led most of the way but then moved to the wrong table by mistake. The American tournament director fined us a board which relegated us from first place to third. It was my fault if I had just played more slowly then there would have only been 1 table left to move to!!