CONTRACT BRIDGE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 229, 27 September 1930, Page 15

CONTRACT BRIDGE.

INTERNATIONAL MATCH. OUTCOME or CHALLENGE. TEST OF SKILL AM) BIDDING. (By Telegraph.—Special to " Star.") WELLINGTON, this day. The first international bridge contest, which lias just reached finality in England, when the American team bpat their hosts by 4845 points was the outcome of a challenge from the United States to settle the issue of which side of the Atlantic produced the better players. The challenge was issued by Ely Culbertson, a New Yorker, who was pronfpted to this by the statement of Lieut.-Colonel Walter Buller in a book on bridge that British players were superior to American. Culbertson, who captained the team, arranged that the match should be played between four representatives of each nation, the other American players being Mrs. Culbertson, who is rated as good a woman player as any in the United States, Theodore E. Lightner and Baron Waldemar Von Zedwitz, who has married an American, and though Swiss by birth, is now a naturalised citizen of the United States. The challenge match was far from being a haphazard game of bridge. The Americans arranged to rotate as partners, in order to show that their best players possessed perfect understanding of one another's bidding and signals in play, and each table played duplicate hands, the score for the whole side being calculated on who won the hand and by how much. Further stilL at one table the American pair would be playing "A" and "B," while at tha other the English pair would hold these hands and the Americans be "X" and "Y." This meant that each deal saw both sides r with exactly equal chances in the matter of cards. Luck was eliminated and the ! contest resolved itself into a matter of bidding and skill. Three hundred hands were played, 25 each afternoon and evening for a week. The English players had wished for 200 hands, but finally agreed to the greater number. The match was played under Portland Club rules, which are the same as the American in the matter of scoring in contract bridge —the "test" was at contract, not auction—and different only in such minor matters as infractions of the rules. The match was played at contract bridge because of the fact that this newer development is now almost completely victorious in the United States and Canada and is also widely played in Europe. It attracts because of its greater prizes, higher scoring, keener bidding and demands for more skilful play. Before returning to the United States it is expected that the American team will play some of the English clubs, the famous" Crcckford Club being among those which have challanged the visitors.