Four Dartmouth students defeated perennial powerhouses Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology at the Northeast Intercollegiate Bridge Championships earlier this month and earned a free trip to Memphis, Tenn., for the national finals in May.
Dartmouth beat Harvard in a tie-breaker at the annual card players' tournament, which was held Feb. 17 in Cromewell, Conn. Dartmouth's team consists of Bridge Club President Dave Hemmer '96, Jason Rotenberg '98 and graduate students Larry Gariepy and Dirk Meyer.
"Not only did we win, but the victory was the closest possible win [in] a bridge tournament," Hemmer said. "It was the talk of the tournament."
Hemmer said Harvard was the overwhelming favorite for the competition, which Dartmouth has not entered in several years.
"This was the first time that anyone could remember Dartmouth going to this tournament, let alone winning it," Hemmer said.
"We were sure that we had lost," he said. "I bet Harvard was surprised too."
More surprising was that the game of bridge was new to one of Dartmouth's players.
"I am an exchange student from Germany and only learned the game five months ago, so we had never competed together before," Meyer said.
"We were not expecting to win at all," he said. "It was a big surprise."
Hemmer said he is optimistic about the team's chances at the national finals, in which nine championship teams will compete.
"We're all very excited, and we think we have a good chance to win because Harvard and MIT were such tough competition," he said.
"We will be able to improve a lot between now and then," Hemmer said.
Meyer will be unable to compete because he is returning to Germany before the national finals.
Hemmer said the Bridge Club was only recently recognized by the Committee on Student Organizations, which funded the trip to Connecticut.
"There aren't too many people who play bridge on campus, so we just formed a team," Hemmer said.
