Charles Henry Goren (March 4, 1901 – April 3, 1991) was a world champion American bridge player and bestselling author who contributed significantly to the development and popularization of the game.
Goren was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Russian Jewish immigrants. He earned a law degree at McGill University in Montreal. While he was attending McGill, a girlfriend laughed at his ineptness at the game of bridge, motivating him to immerse himself in a study of existing bridge materials.
When he graduated, he briefly attempted a law career in Philadelphia. The growing fame of Ely Culbertson, however, prompted Goren to abandon his original career choice to pursue bridge competitions, where he attracted the attention of Milton Work, who had developed the Work Point Count system. Goren began helping Work with his bridge articles and columns, and eventually began ghostwriting some of his material.
By 1936 Goren had begun his own bridge career and published the first of his many books on playing bridge, Winning Bridge Made Easy. Drawing on his experience with Work's system, Goren quickly became popular as an instructor and lecturer. His subsequent lifetime of contributions to the game have made him one of the most important figures in the history of bridge.
Goren became world champion at the Bermuda Bowl in 1950. Goren's books have sold millions of copies (especially Winning Bridge Made Easy and Contract Bridge Complete); by 1958 his daily bridge column was appearing in 194 American newspapers. He also had a monthly column in McCall's and a weekly column in Sports Illustrated. His television program, Championship Bridge with Charles Goren, was broadcast from 1959 to 1964.
Goren's longest partnership was with Helen Sobel, but he also famously partnered actor Omar Sharif. Sharif also wrote introductions to or co-authored several of Goren's bridge books, and was also co-author of Goren's newspaper column, eventually taking it over in collaboration with Tannah Hirsch.
Point count system
As he continued writing, Goren began to develop his high card point count system, based on the Milton Work point count, as an improvement over the existing system of counting "honor tricks." The high card point system represented a large step forward in bridge theory and quickly gained popularity due to its simplicity. Goren and others would later refine the system to account for hand distribution, as singletons and voids can greatly increase the strength of a hand.
Four-card suits
Goren also worked to popularize the opening of four-card suits, in contrast to the well-known five card majors approach that has become a major feature of Standard American bidding. Opening a four-card suit can improve the chances of the partnership identifying a four-four trump fit, and the four-card approach is still used by some experts today. The drawback of the four-card approach is that the Law of Total Tricks is more difficult to apply in cases where it is used.
Other contributions
In addition to his pioneering work in bringing simple and effective bridge to everyday players, Goren also worked to popularize the Precision bidding method, which is one of many variants of so-called big club or strong club systems (which use an opening bid of one club to indicate a strong hand).
Goren died in 1991 in Encino, California, at the age of 90. While few players "play Goren" exactly today, the point count approach he popularized remains the foundation for most bidding systems.
