‘It’s Like Playing With Kobe’: An Unlikely Intergenerational Bridge Team (Published 2020) (2024)

One afternoon during the height of coronavirus lockdowns, 16-year-old Finn Kolesnik found himself in a cold sweat. He was on the phone with Bob Hamman, 82, one of the greatest bridge players ever.

Kolesnik wanted to know if, um, maybe Hamman and his longtime bridge partner, Peter Weichsel, 77, would join his team for this year’s North American Online Bridge Championships Premier Knockout, being held from July 23 to Aug. 2?

“Who’s better to play with than the historically best player of all time?” said Kolesnik, a high school junior in Ventura, Calif., who learned bridge from his parents when he was 13.

Though Kolesnik casually knew Hamman through his father, who also plays bridge, he thought the request was a long shot. Both Hamman and Weichsel are Grand Life Masters and in the Bridge Hall of Fame. Kolesnik had only been playing three years, but Hamman responded quickly: He was in, and thrilled that teenagers were even interested in the game. “There’s not enough young people playing,” he said.

The unlikely group, which included Kolesnik’s bridge partner, 20-year-old Jacob Freeman, recruited Bart Bramley, 72, and Kit Woolsey, 76, to round out the team of six.

“It’s the greatest game ever invented,” said Bramley, who has been playing since he was 5 and is also a Hall of Famer. “I saw my father playing in the living room with three other guys. I didn’t know what they were doing, but I knew I wanted to do it.”