Tim Seres

Who was Tim Seres?

Thomas Peter Seres was an Australian bridge player, generally considered amongst the best to represent the country internationally, Also a contributor to several magazines, he was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia in 1988 for his services to bridge,

Born in Hungary and raised on the family farm, his parents were killed in WWII. He and his elder brother, George, survived the bombing of Budapest and the Russian occupation and were helped by their aunt and uncle to get passage to Australia in 1947; he immediately obtained a job in a textile factory despite his lack of English.

Seres had played cards from the age of six and was an accomplished chess player and was soon playing bridge six nights a week to escape the tedium of his factory work. Within eleven months after arriving in Sydney, he won the Australian National Championships, representing New South Wales. While winning consistently locally and nationally, it was in 1958 that Seres and his long time tournament partner, Dick Cummings, first began to compete in Europe, representing Australia for years to come. For a period, Seres was automatically selected to represent Australia and was able to choose his own partner; they would be joined by four other players who had to go through selection trials.