AUCTION BRIDGE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 62, 14 March 1930, Page 6

AUCTION BRIDGE.

AT A COCK AND HEN CLUB. (By A. E. MANNING FOSTER.) In case you are getting rather tired of the Boob and the Champion, I shall this week transfer you to a celebrated London Cock and Hen Club, where Contract Bridge is played for rather high points. It is very amusing to play and to watch, because all sorts of things happen. Some of the players arc quite conversant with all the latest conventions for slam bidding. Others continue to bid and play more or less on Auction lines.

As I have explained, the bidding for slams has always an element of risk, and, unless it is done on sound, conventional lines, frequently results in disaster. Here is a case from actual play, Z and Y. being two women players against A and B, two men:—

Score, game all, both sides vulnerable. B dealt, and said, "No bid"; Z, "Two Hearts"; A, "No bid"; Y, "Two Spades"; B. "No bid"; Z, "Six Hearts"; A and Y, "No bid"; U. -Double." All pass. As to the bidding; Z might have railed game straightaway, but allowing for the probable drop of the Queen of Hearts with only two losing tricks in the hand, she wanted to arrive at a slam bid. So she chose, quite correctly, to open with a bid of Two. A realised it was no use bidding Clubs and passed, but Y made the fatal mistake of bidding "Two Spades." Z in turn with the assurance, as she was justified in supposing, of at least one trick in Spades, bid a small slam, and B doubled because he knew that Y had bid Spades wrongly Z, if she had had confidence in her partner, might and should have redoubled, but she did not. A opened with the King of Clubs, and when Y's hand went down on the table Z gasped audibly/ You can see the result. Z lost 200 pointsone trick down being vulnerable. In acid tones she said: "What an atrocious bid, my dear! We had game and rubber sitting if you had called properly." "Well, you started with 'Two Hearts,'" replied Y, "so I thought it was necessary for me to show you something." "Yes, if you had anything," said Z, "but as you had no certain tricks, all you should have said was 'Three Hearts.' Surely you know that it is a fatal thing to show a suit over a two bid unless it has a quick trick in it. All I asked from you was the Ace of Spades or even the King, "Queen of Spades. You distinctly threw away the rubber." "It is all very well blaming me," replied Y, "but I still think that I was right in calling as I did. This slam bidding is really ridiculous, and, instead of bhwning me, you should blame yourself. I called quite correctly and showed my strength in Spades." I need hardly add for those who have played Contract that Z was right and Y was wrong. THE CHILD AND THE 'PHONE. At Bradford a practical subject lias been added to the school syllabus. The children are to be instructed in the use of the telephone, and a portable call box is to be taken round the schools. Details of the scheme are lacking, tut presumably the children will be taught, not merely the mechanical side of dialling or ringing central, but also the far more important matter of brevity and directness when communication has been established. The automatic telephone has made ringing up so easy that some people with plenty of time on their hands look on the telephone as a kind of amusement and an easy way of paying calls. They have an idea that to state your business shortly and receive an answer equally to the point savours of curtness, if not of actual rudeness. Someone, for instance, rings up to know what time a meeting is. It seems rather abrupt to give the answer "Eight o'clock," and then hang up the receiver. So the person questioned feels it incumbent to make a few general remarks, either about the meeting itself, or the weather, or the wickedness of the Government, followed by inquiries as to the health of the person who has rung and the family in general. This leads to similar inquiries from the other side, and a conversation which could have been ended in one minute is frequently extended to ten or more. It is surprising how many people contrive to get a wrong number even with an automatic. Some blame the printing in the telephone directory, which makes it difficult to distinguish a 3 from a 5. If all mistakes could be accounted for by this confusion there might be something in it, but many mistakes occur in numbers which, are quite distinctly printed, and there would appear to be those who are constitutionally incapable of getting the right number at the first attempt. Some people, having once got a wrong number, continue to do so foi* two or three times in succession, and they are rewarded by a few pertinent remarks from the party at the other end. Instruction in the use of a telephone would seem to be needed for adults even more than for children. It might be taken up by the Workers' ' Educational Association, University Extension lecturers, and other bodies which seek to rectify the deficiencies of youthful training. Much could be done to add to the comfort of life if people were taught never to use the telephone except when urgently necessary, to avoid trivialities, and to cultivate brevity. But there are some who seem to think that, having paid for their 'phone, they would not be getting value for their money if they did not use it as often and for as long as possible. The call from London to New York, which coets £5 for three minutes, could probably furnish a model as regards brevity and iirgency for the imitation of the juvenile telephonists of Bradford. . --W.M.

ONE IDEA A YEAR. The "Oxford Magazine," in a recent article, claims that the university man is w<sll fitted for a business career because "whereas the young man trained in the business sees no farther than his desk, the university man has been taught to look about him." It supports its claim with the following story: "One of the more lackadaisical of undergradurtes, with plenty of brains and still more of indolence, went last year into a railway company —say, the Great Western He was told by the company that he must get business experience by starting at the bottom, and was accordingly sent off as a porter, and later as a booking clerk. After a time this became intolerable to him, p:icl he threw up the job. The com puny did not want to lose his brains, and told him that if, each year, he could think of one way in which the company could save money he would be paid a salary of £GOO a year. Thereupon he spent a week in London and came back. He told the company that he had noticed the three letters 'G-.W.R.' painted on all the goods trucks. "Everyone knows that you are a railway. Why not in future simply paint the two lettei's T-i.W/ and save money that way?" The company accepted this suggestion, and found that they saved £7000 a year in doing so."