Rixi Markus: The First Woman at the Very Top of World Bridge

Published October 1, 2026

Some players are remembered for a single brilliant hand. Rixi Markus is remembered for a whole lifetime at the table: nearly sixty years of top-level bridge, a new country forced on her by war, titles won with partners from all over the world, and a first that no woman had reached before her. Here is her story.

From Bukovina to the card rooms of Vienna

She was born Erika Scharfstein on 27 June 1910, into a well-off Jewish family in the small town of Gura Humorului, in the region of Bukovina. At the time it belonged to the Austro-Hungarian Empire; today it is part of Romania. In 1916, with the Russian army advancing, the family fled and eventually made a home in Vienna.

Vienna was where the talent showed. By about ten she was playing whist, the older trick-taking game that bridge grew out of, and two years later she switched to bridge. Interwar Vienna was one of Europe's great bridge cities, and a curious young player could hardly have landed in a better place.

A world champion at 27

In the mid-1930s Rixi joined Austria's women's team. Austria won the European Women's Teams in 1935 and again in 1936. Then, in Budapest in 1937, came the big one: Austria won the first ever women's world championship for national teams. Rixi was just 27.

A year later her world fell apart. In March 1938 German troops marched into Austria. As a Jewish woman, Rixi knew she had to leave, and she escaped to London with her young daughter. She had to start again in a foreign country, in a foreign language, on the eve of war. In 1950 she became a British citizen — and went on winning, now for Britain.

Two Viennese women, one table

In 1955 she began her most famous partnership, with Fritzi Gordon, another Austrian-born player who had made her life in Britain. For about twenty years they were one of the most successful women's pairs the game has ever seen. Together they won the World Women's Pairs twice, in 1962 and 1974, plus a long run of European titles with the British team.

The surprising part: they were not close friends. Rixi was fiery, emotional and warm; Fritzi was cool and controlled. They argued at the table more than once. Yet once the cards were dealt, each knew exactly what the other's bids and signals meant — and that turned out to matter far more than friendship.

A woman at the top of a man's game

Also in 1962, Rixi won the world mixed teams title. Later she became the first woman ever to earn the World Bridge Federation's highest rank, World Grand Master. Fritzi Gordon became the second.

Through the 1970s she was the top-ranked woman in the federation's masterpoint standings, and she was made an MBE for her services to bridge. After her death, the noted bridge columnist Alan Truscott observed that no one had won with so many partners from so many different countries.

A teacher as well as a champion

For about thirty-seven years Rixi wrote the bridge column for The Guardian, and she published several books on the game, including an autobiography. To her, bridge was not just for champions — it was for everyone.

Rixi Markus died on 4 April 1992, aged 81. People who knew her said she was fiercely competitive at the table and warm and much loved away from it.

Want to play as a real partnership? In J Bridge your partner is Yehudit, and she explains every bid and every card. New to the game? Start with how to play bridge and the rules of bridge.

Start playing free →

J Bridge is a free bridge game: play against the computer, learn step by step with Yehudit, no ads — and no internet needed after the first load.