Simplified Chinese 魏重庆 Name C. Wei Wade–Giles Wei Chung-ch'ing | Hanyu Pinyin Traditional Chinese 魏重慶 | |
Died February 20, 1987, Broadway, New York, United States Books The precision bidding system in bridge, Bidding Precisely, Profits from Preempts, Simplified Precision Bridge | ||
Chung Ching (C. C., Charles C.) Wei (July 12, 1914 – February 20, 1987) was a Chinese-born American businessman who created the Precision Club bidding system in contract bridge.
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Biography
Wei was born in Sheng County, Zhejiang Province, China. He received his B.E. in electrical engineering from Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 1936. In 1942, during World War II, he went to the United States. After the war he became a successful entrepreneur in the shipping industry.
Wei was a member of the ACBL Greater New York Bridge Association. As a player, he was renowned for partnership agreements to compete vigorously through the 2-level, especially at matchpoints. He sometimes played at the Mayfair Club.
Wei died of complications from diabetes at age 72, in New York Hospital, then a resident of New York and Houston. He was survived by his wife Kathie Wei, a son, a daughter, and three stepchildren.
Achievements in bridge
In 1963 "with assistance from Alan Truscott" Wei developed the China bidding system, later called the Precision Club. He was not an expert player, and the system did not attract much attention from the bridge community. That changed when the Taiwan national team, trained and led by Wei, finished as runner-up in the 1969 Bermuda Bowl world team championship, relegating a strong North America team to third place. With two returning players and four new ones, Taiwan were losing finalists again in 1970, and these strong showings brought Wei and the Precision Club great recognition. In order to promote the system, Wei sponsored "a number of top-level teams" to use it. The most successful, which came to be called simply the Precision Team, formed in 1970 and won the ACBL Spingold knockout tournament that year, beating the defending champions who were also 1970 Bermuda Bowl champions. Before it disbanded mid-1973, the team won another Spingold and a Vanderbilt Cup, and two of its pairs finished first and second in the 1973 Sunday Times Invitational Pairs, London.
Italy's Blue Team, which had retired after beating Taiwan in 1969, adopted versions of the Precision system for its successful return to competitive international play in the 1972 World Team Olympiad. Its strongest pair, Giorgio Belladonna and Benito Garozzo, used their Super Precision version through the 1970s, and led Italy to three more Bermuda Bowl championships 1973 to 1975. The great success of the Precision systems began a wave of strong club systems all over the world. According to Truscott, Precision systems constituted "by far the most popular non-standard method throughout the world" at the time of the inventor's death.