Gefilte fish balls are NOT typical snack at bridge tournaments, where minds, wits and the draw of the cards meet for exhilarating and exhausting rounds lasting 10, long 8-plus hour days.

But Pam and Matt Granovetter are changing that. Come to think of it, they’re NOT your typical couple at the bridge table, either.

Matt’s long salt and pepper beard is a give-away. Surrounded by sports shirt toutin’ bridge fanatics, Matt tries to go a bit incognito with his baseball hat over his yarmulke. The beard and tzitzis make it clear this guy’s got other interests besides a good hand and the razor-sharp mind full of strategies that made him a well-known expert in the bridge world.

Prolific players and authors, the Granovetters publish a bridge magazine, Bridge Today since 1988, and have written 12 books on the game. National champions in the US and Israel, they’ve played in Holland, Canada, Israel and Iceland and throughout the US together, while Matt has also played in Italy, France, the Canary Islands, England, Mexico and the Hague.

Matt got into the game at age 12, playing with his father, a NJ champion. He quickly rose through the ranks as his talent became apparent.

Pam, from Cleveland, started playing in college, and soon caught the bug. She briefly met Matt at a tournament in Holland in 1980. The following year their paths crossed in Toronto, and as Pam remarks, “that was that.”

The dynamic duo married in 1983, with NO RELIGION, as one of the tenets of their life together. They settled in Albany, NY and were soon happily busy with two young sons, working as full time tournament bridge players, and developing their fledgling bridge business of books, magazine and lessons.

Enter Patricia Cayne. In 1990, this friend asked Pam to be her partner at a Boston tournament. Between hands she told Pam she had recently received her PhD and decided to learn Torah as the finishing touch to her education. She was hosting Rebbetzin Esther Jungreis in her Park Avenue home for a monthly Torah lesson, and shared interesting “Bible study” ideas with Pam.

“At first we all thought she was crazy- bridge players are notably tolerant, but we were an extremely secular-minded group. I had to admit, everything she told me sounded intelligent and logical,” Pam recalls.

"Come to one of the classes; you'll love Torah because it's like bridge - everything makes sense and fits together,” Pat urged.

Encouraged by Matthew, I decided to try a class and I ‘knew’ everything I was hearing was true. I told my husband how exciting it was, and he then revealed his deep, dark secret.

His family had belonged to an Orthodox shul until he was about 12, when they switched affiliations. Matt insisted on having his Bar Mitzvah there, where the rabbi was the son of the beloved R. Aryeh Levine, known as "the tzaddik of Jerusalem".

Once we opened the door to Torah a crack, Matt realized how much he actually missed his connection to Yiddishkeit. He encouraged me to make the overnight shlep into Manhattan for the monthly class, while he stayed home to baby sit in Albany.”

“Our boys were 3 and 5. We decided to ease into keeping mitzvahs, one step at a time. We met Rabbi Yisroel and Rochel Rubin, from the Chabad in Albany, and Matt started learning Torah with Rabbi Jonathon Horowitz from Schenectady. Both warm and friendly families invited us for Shabbos, and we began to try to keep Shabbos in our home as well. Interestingly, our little boys were quite happy to give up their former Saturday activities, including television and outings in the car!”

Game for new intellectual vistas, the Granovetters sat down to learn Chassidus with Rabbi Rubin. Pam recalls her initial reaction. “At the end of the first session, we realized we didn't understand a single thing, but we weren't worried because bridge is the same way - you just can't learn it standing on one foot! We assumed we'd eventually get it, and indeed, the depth and beauty of Chassidus is now the central point of our life.”

The boys soon switched to Albany’s Maimonides Day School. As Matt and Sarah/Pam continued learning, they sought a more spiritual environment, and moved to Jerusalem in 1993. Tournament playing took a back seat to raising their three boys (with Shmuel their sabra born in 1994.)
From Jerusalem, the Granovetters continued writing and doing some playing, which involved extensive travel. In addition to enjoying this fascinating game, full of strategy, math, logic and psychology, they came to see bridge as a bridge.

Bridges connect separated regions, and they had a means of connecting their thousands of fans, friends, students and readers with spiritual Torah insights and values. They moved back state-side this fall, to Cincinnati, where they are positioned to be more effective bridge builders than they could be in Israel.

Ten day bridge tournaments extending over Shabbos are challenges for our intrepid duo, like hotel rooms on high floors (huffing and puffing up all the stairs). But it offers the Granovetters opportunities to share the wealth they treasure even more than the tournament jackpot or the Lancia sports car Matt won in 1975 when his team beat Omar Sharif’s.

They host Friday night candle lighting and kiddushes bringing the Shabbos spirit to this international universe in which around 1,000 people make a living at the tournament level, and many more aficionados teach and kibutz (watch). Many successful businessmen play for relaxation and a mind-stretch, including Bill Gates.

Matt records his match against the Microsoft mogul, on his website BridgeToday.com. “At the Spring North American championships this March, in Reno, Nevada, I played seven bridge hands against Bill Gates.

At the bridge table, Gates is considered a novice - in the tournament bridge world everyone is judged solely by his skills. When we draw the Gates team and my partner and I come to his table for a seven-hand team match, there’s only one kibitzer, a fellow with his chair about eight feet from the table, on Gates' partner's side. Meanwhile, various people around the room with about 50 cents in their bank accounts (combined), have half-a-dozen or more kibitzers each, because the kibitzers are interested in watching fine bridge. Our sole kibitzer was probably interested only in staring at Gates in the flesh.

This time I noticed something interesting about Gates' manner. He's a studious bridge player, no doubt, but not yet relaxed at the table.

To be a winning player, you must not only concentrate well but also relax to some extent - a winning psychological strategy for most games and sports. When Gates has a difficult decision to make about which card to play, he pulls the card out of his hand and flips it to the table in a unique spinning motion. For example, at one point in the hand, Sparky leads the 9 of spades toward dummy's ace-king-eight-seven. Gates, next to play, suddenly produces the Gates Draydel-like flip, wherein the card vaults into the air, hits the table face up and spins around clockwise for two or three circles. When it stops spinning, Sparky eyes him suspiciously but fails to take full advantage of the inference that Gates is nervous and has played his card this way because he holds the queen, jack and ten of spades. Sparky grins when he later sees what has happened, and Gates happily smiles, too, having successfully made a tricky play.”

So, how does Torah living affect our pair where it really counts, down in the trenches while dealing with a difficult hand? Does belief in Divine Providence and guidance change their strategy? Pam smiles, “Well, we still want to WIN and get a lot of pleasure when we do! But seriously, even though bridge involves more skill than most games, we now see the Divine Providence in it, big time. This gives us more patience to deal with stress or bad hands. We also have a broader perspective, and realize that it is (GASP) just a game!”

A new light is shining from the huddle around the table as the Manishewitz wine and kippah-clad players do their thing. “Our bridge-playing friends have become more spiritually sensitive and inquisitive - our after-game conversations are no longer exclusively "post mortem" review of every bridge hand. We often discuss metaphysics, spirituality, and even the Torah and the Rebbe with our bridge friends. Some, though, always say ‘No religion please!’ and we're respectful of that, too.”

Hey, it’s become the hottest item on the bridge scene. A little Friday night l’chaim, sponge cake and gefilte, washed down with an inspiring Torah thought, a new bridge to spiritual treasures and vistas.

Captions:
Granovetter at a tournament with Bill Gates
Granovetter (second from left), with Netanyahu and friends