CONTRACT BRIDGE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 286, 2 December 1932, Page 6

CONTRACT BRIDGE.

MAINTAIN EASY COMMUNICATION.

(By ELY CULBERTSON".) I have frequently referred in these articles to the similarity between the strategy and tactics of war and those of Contract. Before the opening bid the hands of the two partners are like allied armies seeking the same end—the defeat of an enemy—but cut off from each other and unaware of the strength or disposition of the friendly force with whom contact must be made if the desired end is to be achieved.

The bidding is the first step in the establishment of communications. Each step in the bidding is like the arrival of a courier carrying a dispatch revealing the strength and disposition of friendly forces. Through the exchange of thase messages the allied forces may safely determine whether they should attack or defend. It might be said in passing that the great disasters in Contract, like the great disasters in war, occur when those having the final decision as to attack or defence make the wrong choice. However, to-day's story deals more with the question of keeping up uninterrupted the lines of communications once established, through providing easy entry and exit from one hand to the other in the play rather than anything in the prediction of resuits, which bidding actually is.

Sou tli dea'er. North-South not vulnerable, East-West vulnerable.

The Bidding. (Figures after bids in tab'e refer to numbered explanatory paragraphs.) South West North East 1 y Dbl. (1) 3 V (2) < 3 A (3) 4 V Pass (4) Pass Pass

1. —West's double is. of course, strategic. The fact that his side is vulnerable and that opponents have opened the bidding impels him to hope that a strategic double may prevent them from contracting for game or premit him to buy the contract in Clubs at a comparatively low figure.

2.—influenced by the scoring situation. North overbids his hand. Unless the hand is played with Hearts as trump his holdings are barren of trick-taking probabilities.. 3.—East, misled by his partner's take-out double and holding a fair two-suited hand, refuses to be shut out. 4.—West fears to continue the bidding, as his double was ba&ed on insufficient values and his strategy has gone awry.

This hand was played in a recent duplicate match, and I give the bidding as it actually occurred at one table. Certainly this bidding could have been much sounder, but part of it was dictated by conceptions, of strategy and part by necessities of defence.

In the play at one table West opened the King of Clubs and then shifted to the singleton Diamond. A lead of a Spade would assure the defeat of the contract, but the West player hoped that his partner's three-Spade bid included the Aee of Diamonds and hence that lie would be able to give him a ruff in that suit before the declarer pulled the trumps.

South won with the Ace, playing a low Diamond from dummy, and then led two rounds of trumps, exhausting the East and West hands. He had carelessly, however, taken both rounds of trumps in the dummy, and on them had played the 0 and 5 of Hearts. That mistake was to plague him in the later play of the hand. His reason for taking the final round of trumps in dummy was sound, namely, the deAire to eliminate Clubs from both hands so that, to some extent, he could control the subsequent play.

After trumping dummy's last Club, South led a small Diamond to the Queen, and East won. West, of course, refused to follow. Now East laid down the King of Spades and South 6aw that he could make his contract if he could enter the dummy and lead the last Diamond from the dummy hand to the 10 8 in his own hand, which was in tenaee position over East's 9 7. All that was necessary to lead a Diamond from the dummy hand. This, however, due to South'® careless play of the trumps, was the one thing that could not be done. In the dummy were the 7 4 3 of Hearts; in the closed hand -were the A 9. The desired lead of the Diamond up to the closed hand's holding in that suit was therefore impossible, and South had to content himself with a defeat of one trick. The fact that his ability to make the contract was due to faulty defence by West was no balm for his hurts.

The play of our opponents is difficult to control —sometimes it is impossible—but the way in which wc play the cards in the closed and dummy hands is a matter entirely within our control and deserves as much thought as is necessary to provide for contingencies either remote or near.