pair championships (Blue Ribbon Pairs, Life Master Pairs and Men's Pairs) with eight different partners. He won the World Open Pairs once, with Bobby Wolff in 1974, and he was second in 1994 with Michael Rosenberg. Probably his most popular and emotional win, other than the 1970 Bermuda Bowl, was the annual Vanderbilt Trophy, the oldest open teams event in North America, in 2000. Despite myriad other wins, Hamman had not won the Vanderbilt since 1973. His partner Paul Soloway was severely ill, commuting between the tournament site and the hospital, and literally came out of his sickbed to play the final quarter of the quarterfinal match; they won that session by 34 IMPs to win the match by 1. On the final board, Hamman and Soloway had a bidding misunderstanding to reach a very poor 6H contract, but their opponents could not work out declarer's hand due to the unusual auction, and the contract made, providing the margin of victory. Hamman's Law is the maxim, "If you have a choice of reasonable bids and one of them is 3NT, then bid it." Prize coverage business Hamman founded SCA Promotions in 1986. The company offers a form of insurance where they cover the prize money for large competitions, initially focusing on hole-in-one prizes in golf. In 2015, SCA was able to retrieve money from Lance Armstrong that had been paid to cover prize money. He was portrayed by Dustin Hoffman in the 2015 film The Program, dealing with Lance Armstrong's career and downfall. Bridge accomplishments Honors ACBL Hall of Fame, 1999 ACBL Honorary Member of the Year 1991 Awards ACBL Player of the Year 1990, 1993, 2006 Fishbein Trophy 1969, 1983 Herman Trophy 1978, 1988, 1993 Precision Award (Best Defended Hand of the Year) 1986, 1993 Wins Bermuda Bowl (10) 1970, 1971, 1977, 1983, 1985, 1987, 1995, 2000, 2003, 2009 World Open Team Olympiad (1) 1988 World Open Pairs (1) 1974 North American Bridge Championships (54) Vanderbilt (6) 1964, 1966, 1971, 1973, 2000, 2003 Spingold (15) 1969, 1979, 1982, 1983, 1989, 1990, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1998, 1999, 2004, 2006, 2007 Chicago (now Reisinger) (1) 1962 Reisinger (11) 1970, 1978, 1979, 1988, 1993, 1994, 1995, 2004, 2005, 2008, 2009 Grand National Teams (4) 1975, 1977, 1986, 2006 Open Board-a-Match Teams (2) 2008, 2019 Men's Board-a-Match Teams (1) 1988 Jacoby Open Swiss Teams (3) 1990, 2006, 2009 Master Mixed Teams (1)