CONTRACT BRIDGE

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 88, 15 April 1933, Page 6

CONTRACT BRIDGE

THE EXPERT VERSUS THE "DUD."

(By ELY CULBERTSON.)

This is the first oC a series of articles by Mr. Culbertson dealing with the additions anil refinements made necessary in Contract bidding by the new scoring.

I am emphatically opposed to a laigelj prevailing practice of advocating' two systems of Contract —one ror the expert' and the other for the average player. Every hope of improvement must be given up when a player is taught a specially-prepared set of superficial and incomplete rules on the ground that the proper methods and the only winning ones are too difficult tor him to grasp, but must be reserved as special food for the elect advanced players. As a result of this "baby talk," the poor "dub" is caught in a vicious circle. The more lessons he takes the more books he reads, the more he absorbs the fatal, specially-prepared diet. As a result we have in America a large and growing class of expert beginners. Some writers fall into the even more serious error of producing highly complicated and extremely cumbersome improvements of the approach-forcing system of bidding under one name or another. Life is far too slioit to study geometry twice. The irony of all this is that the methods commonly used by master players, far from being complicated, are essentially simple, because they must be in strict consonance with the mgjc of bidding and playing situations. It is for this reason that I advocate a system of bidding based entirely on natural, inevitable inferences and opposed to far-fetched conventions, crippling artificial counts and superficial complications. Simplicity and precision are the essential characteristics of an effective system of bidding, thus making it at once adaptable for championship and expert play and for the average player as The laws of Contract bridge have recently undergone rather radical revision. Increased penalties are provided for doubled under-tricks, not vulnerable, and increased bonuses for grand slams bid and made. These changes / are basic, and, as a result, certain revisions and additions were found necessary to comply with the spirit and letter of the new laws. Any player, however, who has mastered the principles of approach biddin"' has nothing to unlearn. The approach principle and its corollary, the forcing system, are at the base of any sound system of Contract bidding. We all use a system, whether in bidding at the Contract bridge table or in ordering the affairs of our everyday life. Probably any player, if he had the time, could work out foi himself an entirely satisfactory system of bidding, but most of us, unfortunately or otherwise, are much preoccupied with the business of making a living and thus in recreation are dependent upon the work of others. The principles of biddin™- Contract bridge, known to the public generally as the Culbertson system, are based on the test of master play by the world's most expeit players. . . In a scries of articles explaining the changes, or rather additions, made necessary by the new laws and the improved standards of bidding and plar, I shall outline in these columns some or the" principal additions and refinements designed to equip every Bridge player to cope with the problems of biddinsr in expert play. _ I have already dealt with the principles of plastic valuation, the method used by experts to avoid the mathematical count. Other articles will deal with such subjects as the part-forcing one over one, slam inferential foicing bids, sign-off bids, the new jump overcall as a defensive measure, the requirements for forcing take-outs, forcing bids with a part score, and other questions which face the Contract player in reaching the goal which all seek to attain the host bid in the combined hands. Your partner, sitting North, with both sides vulnerable, has opened the bidding with one Heart. How do you respond with the hand helow? A ® V —A Q J 7 2 4_A Q 4 3 A —B 6 I N [ I W E S I A-A K 6 5 4 —K J 6 5 Jf. —Q J 4 2 You may read the expert method next week.