Rixi Markus

"Rixi" Markus[1] MBE (27 June 1910 – 4 April 1992) was an Austrian and British international contract bridge player.

[2] "In a 60-year career", Alan Truscott wrote in a bridge column 15 weeks after her death, "she had far more victories with partners of assorted nationalities than anyone else has ever had.

[4] Markus was born Erika (Rika) Scharfstein into a prosperous Austrian Jewish family in Gura Humorului, Bukovina.

[7] She described in her autobiography three subsequent long-term relationships with men: first Standish Booker, a leading bridge player, then Wash Carr (Walter Copley Carr) of the News of the World, and lastly Harold Lever (Lord Lever), a senior Labour Party politician.

However, it was Rixi's partnership with Fritzi Gordon in the European championships of 1955 (Amsterdam) that led to her dominance of the female game in Europe.

She was the same in partnership with the great male players such as Boris Schapiro and Giorgio Belladonna, but her friends knew her to be generous and loyal.

[13] Markus was captain of the winning team at Monte Carlo in 1954 against formidable opposition from all over the world: her team-mates were Konstam, Dodds, Reese, Schapiro and "Plum" Meredith.

In effect, a bizarre decision by the selectors cost her the European and World teams championships in the Open category.