AUCTION BRIDGE.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 284, 30 November 1928, Page 6

AUCTION BRIDGE.

ON BEING A SUBSTITUTE.

(By A. E. MANNING FOSTEE.)

It is laid down in the laws that any player who is obliged to leave the table before the rubber is concluded may, with the consent of the other three players, appoint a substitute. The situation arises constantly in club card rooms. A player suddenly realises that he must go at once to catch a train. Or he must be in time for dinner. He has promised his wife to be punctual, and she will be furious if he is late again, as the pheasants will be spoilt. Or he has to go to a theatre, and must dine early Anyway, he has to get away in a fearful turmoil and bustle, and he asks a man sitting out to take his place. He is in euch a hurry that he does not dream of waiting to hear whether the appointment of the substitute will be satisfactory to his partner and opponents. Not a bit of it. He is off before you can say knife, and forgets to pay his card money and drink bill on the way out.* But the other three, being perfect little gentlemen, and not wanting to appear churlish accept the substitute for better or for worse. It is sometimes very hard on the partner of the dear departed when he happens to choose as substitute the biggest duffer in the company the one man whom one is hoping always never to But it is the fortune of war, and I must say thie for the sporting spirit that in all iny misspent years of card playing I have never yet seen any player at a table refuse to accept an appointed substitute. It may be equally hard on the opponents when the substitute selected ie the best player in the club and the lamented departed is the worst. What is one to do about it? The answer is nothing. One must take the rough with the smooth and grin and bear it However, when you lose a rubber which you think you might have won but for the presence of this substitute, you begin to feel it is a hard life, and wonder if you should not be more adamant in enforcing laws. The position of the substitute is also not without its difficulties. You are playing for B and you know that B is a flag-flyer of the most lund description. Hβ won't let the rubber go. What are you to do? Are you to adopt his tactics and keep the game alive, or are you to play your own naturally sound game? Whichever course you adopt, you may be sure you will not be thanked by him later if he has to pay up on a big rubber or by his partner. If you win for him he will take it as a matter of course. If you lose for him he will think all the time that he would have done better if he had stayed. I remember a particularly bitter case. I had lost seven rubbers in succession, and was hoping to play a final before dinner when I was asked to be a substitute for a man who was called away suddenly on the telephone. I could not refuse. I am not romancing. This is hard fact. I held the cards of a lifetime, and made two grand slams with a hundred aces and five honours in Spades. But the rich man whose substitute I was took the boodle! The role of the substitute is indeed hard.