OVER THE CARD TABLE.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 208, 2 September 1926, Page 18

OVER THE CARD TABLE.

AUCTION BRIDGE MADE EASY. PLAYING THE DUMMY HAND. THE FUNCTION' AND VALUE OF TRUMPS. (By "PETER.") (Reprinted from the "Auckland Star' , Sports Edition.)

There is probably no card game which has the vogue enjoyed by bridge among all sections of the community. It is a fascinating game, with tricky problems, but when one has been put right on the broad lines of play these problems will be found to add to the sparkle of wit against wit. In a series of articles, of which this is the ninth, an old-timer smoothes the path of the inexperienced player.

So far the attempt has been, as simply and briefly as possible, to explain tne main principles of the auction, or bidding together with the tactics when playing, with a real live "meat" partner, against the caller manipulating the dummy hand. We come now, in ttie language of Shakespeare, to the '"last stage of all," the actual business of playing the dummy hand. Weak-kneed novices frequently funk that ordeal, even at the cost of sacrificing a thundering good ganie-and-rubber call. We all know the shy gentleman, with most moist palms and the coy lady, with the lip-stick and the Jingly sequin-purse, whose invariable hot-and-bothered attitude is: "I would much rather you played the hand, partner!"

Now, the plain blum fact is that playing the dummy hand is about the easiest job of all. The player in that happy position is the only one who knows definitely and positively what his partner, and his opponents, Lave in their hands. He is the only one whose strategy is proof against some fatal misunderstanding between himself and his partner. His advantages are, like the wicked uncle's misdeeds in Hamlet, "gross and palpable." Therefore take heart, when you are called on to play the hand, and keep cool as an"' iced cucumber. Directly the opponent on your left has led, and dummy's wealth or poverty lies revealed upon the table, take rapid but precise stock of your position. Now is the time to pause a little, not later when you are briskly engaged playing the cards. Keep Awake.

C-omparJng at a glance your two hands, your own and the dummy's, assess your certain, and then jour potential tricks. Thus you will see at once whether the making of your call is straightforward play, or to what extent you must rely for a trick or two on your judgment in finessing or in forcing a lead from the right direction. Never touch a card in your own or dummy's hand until you have firmly and irrevocably made up your mind to play it. Nothing is more irritating than a player who fumbles about with the cards, hesitating, and havering, and wasting time. And never forget which of your two hands took the last trick, and therefore must be led from. The bad habit of leading from the wrong hand has brought low many a promising rubber call. It has also, in the hands of unscrupulous players whose opponents were card table somnambulists or novices, gained many jiefarious points. In that case it almost serves the defrauded players right. It is most essential to keep awake at cards. Auction bridge is a game of concentration and observation. One excellent rule for the player of the dummy hand is that made famous by the L.G.O.C. "Safety First!" Do not throw away your call, a thing fatally easy at no-trumps especially, in a rash endeavour to score over-tricks. But, on the other hand, respect your partner's feelings as a silent spectator, limited to the one stereotyped, but vital inquiry whenever you fail to follow suit, by making every possible bid for safe overtricks. And here we come right up against the golden rule. It applies always and to everybody, but most of all to the player of the dummy hand. Always count the cards. Only so can you be sure when you have drawn all the trumps in your opponents' hands, and can safely proceed to make your outside tricks. But you really must count, not only trumps, but the other suits, too. How many million tricks, in the monstrous aggregate, have been thrown away, by failure to observe that very simple, obvious, and easy precaution, I should not like to guess. The Memory Knack. Counting the cards of ail suits, so that you know how many are still "out" at any moment of the game, soon becomes a mechanical habit once it has been acquired. It will enable you, when you have mastered it—and the effort requires less intellectual stress than learning your ABC—to know also, when you hold one of the two last cards in a suit, whether yours or the enemy's is the top dog. Tremendous issues may impinge on that. May be you will occasionally, like the best players, make a slip in memorising all the cards of every suit. But never mast you »be caught out about the number and importance of the trumps played nnd still to play. Unless you memorise trumps absolutely and infallibly your partner will have every right and reason to suggest that cross-word puzzles arc your true metier. And plciisc assimilate this momentous fact once and for all. More games have- been thrown away by failure to lead trumps, when playing (he dummy hand, limn by all the other sins of omission nnd commission in tlie auction bridge calendar. I have already quoted the threadbare card table n<l igo about nil tlie best Workhouse beds ln-iill! occupied by people who neglected to lead trumps. it is a facetious truism. Trust to Trumps. And avoid that equally thipuclbiiro excuse: "Partner, 1 hadn't enough trumps to lead them out!" Its verdant imbecility annoys partners whose inalhomaticnl education includes twice one-is-two. The fewer trumps you have—and, incidentally, if you have very few trumps, how came you to call them?— the more important it is to play them. If your opponents make their " trumps separately, they will, by the elementary arithmetical rule just quoted, count twice instead of one each pair. Moroovor, if you hnvp been engaged in the very human, but perilous, pursuit of rubber-saving, nnd heen forced a little beyond strict discretion, perhaps, by a 100 optimistic partner, do not on any account refrain from leading trumps merely because dummy proves not to hnve any or more than one. If you nnd dummy have, as surely you must, good outside cards to make, the need for leading out your trumps,<end thereby drawing two for one, is the more

clamant. Never mind if you have not got the ace or king. Out with them, from dummy through your own Jiand if possible.

And here let mc utter another word of timely caution. I have witnessed the debacle of many a good player, who ordinarily would never dream of failing to draw trumps as soon as merely because he attempted to secure a lead from the dummy hand first, with the laudable object of finessinj a queen or jack in his own hand. This strategy must be practised with, due observation and discretion. Never, merely in order to secure a lead of trumps from dummy up to your own cuncealed hand, run tl c risk of being ruffed by you* opponents. Sometimes even the best players must get .'aught tins way, but very rarely though, for they well observe carefully their own and dummy's hand, as well as the calling of their opponents. Never risk an attempt to get into dummy, for a trump lead through your own hand, by playing up to a top-honour suit in dummy that has been strongly called by either of your opponents, rr that you or dummy hold in unusual length. It ie surely obvious how likely it is that one of your opponents will be short, or even minus, in that suit. And in any case the risk you run, in securing a dummy lead, or 'in finessing a card, must always be based on sheer necessity. If the devil drives, needs must; but try to keep his satanic majesty on a curb rein. Don't burn expensive candles to him.