CONTRACT BRIDGE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 128, 1 June 1934, Page 6

CONTRACT BRIDGE.

LOST OPPORTUNITIES.

(By ELY OULBERTSON.)

One of the fascinating , features about bridge is that, like so many oilier endeavours in life, it is marked by the opportunities lost J rather than by those of which full advantage has been taken. Heavy losses occur on many hands beeau.se the theories upon which the bids are based arc not in accord with sound bidding- principles, but are what may rightly be termed individual divergence from sound bidding. In the hand below the mediocre bidding of the North and South bidders cost them almost 4.500 points. North and South could have won a rubber on the hand, with a grand slam bonus as well, instead ot going down 000 points and later losing the rubber bonus to add to their discomfiture. The hand was: South dealer. North and South vulnerable.

The Bidding. (Figures after bids refer to numbered explanatory paragraphs.) South West North East 1 Jf, , Pass 2$ (1) Pass 2 N.T. (2) Pass 54, (3) Pass 6 4, (4) Pass 7 t (5) Dbl. Pass Pass (6) Dbl. Pass Pass Pass 1. —A rather dangerous bid. Xorth has, of course, a very strong hand, but he is void of his. partner's suit. Why Diamonds should be preferred to Spadee as a take-out will remain an unsolved mystery.

2. —An extremely bad bid. South should re-bid his Clube or show the Heart suit in preference to denying any re-bid values by responding with two no-trump. 3. —The third link in the comedy of errors. North, however, has fixed himself by electing- to show Diamonds first. 4.—The effort to avoid the exchange- of definite information by the. partners has thus far proved successful. s.—Perhaps North can find justification for this bid in the exchange of misinformation which has preceded it. Certainly there is no other basis for it.

C-—At "best a choice of evils, but the Lidding has been so terrible that no words remain to characterise it.

It ie obvious that this hand will easily produce seven Hearts, but that suit was never bid by either partner.. Exactly why the North and South players did not show the fit in the one suit that would produce the grand slam is and will remain for ever a mystery.

Unlike the players of the above hand, Mr. Otto J. Axtman, of the Whist Club of the Oranges, did not mies the opportunitv for a brilliant play on the following hand:

» This hand wasiplayed during a team-of-four match. At one table tho North-South players arrived at a four-Spade bid and made six. At tho other table, where Mr. Axtman held the East hand, the North-South players bid six Spades and made only four. South had been tho dealer and had bid Diamonds at one stage of the auction. Mr. Axtman, with his four trumpe to the Ace, saw that desperate measures were necessary to secure an additional trick against a slam bid, and opened with the nine of Diamonds. North, after soino hesitation, played the Ace. He was afraid that the Diamond lead might be a singleton, and he thought that tho Diamond finesse would lose in any case, as he was not prepared for East's tricky lead. There was, however, a possibility that North could throw off his losing Diamond on dummy's Heart suit. Unfortunately he had to try for this discard before playing trumps, because no doubt another Diamond would have been played after the first Spade had been taken with the Ace. So a small Heart was played from the dummy, and taken with the Ace, and a Heart return was taken with the King. Then the Queen of Hearts was played, but it was trumped by West. East's unorthodox lead explains the- difference of two tricks between the scores on this hand made at the two tables.