Austrians’ pre-war play

Press, 20 January 1982, Page 10

Austrians’ pre-war play

CONTRACT BRIDGE

J.R. Wignall

’ Beto'rfcMhe Second World War, the best bridge players were not the Italians, the Americans, or the British. In 1937 an Austrian team captained by Dr Paul Stern won the European Championship. then went on to win the world championship from the United States, represented. by the redoubtable Ely Culbertson. In response to a private invitation Stern took his team to London where a match was staged against four of the leading English players of the day. The star Austrian player was Carl Schneider, who was still representing his country with distinction a quarter of a century later.. A teammate was Herbert, a distinguished musician, who eventually settled in America where he was famous as a conductor. Since bridge was something of a spectator sport in those days, parts of the match were broadcast, and it attracted considerable press interest.

Many spectators crowded into the Waldorf Hotel to watch what quickly became a one-sided struggle. In England at that time, bidding systems were in their infancy. Even after several rounds of the auction most partnerships had only a hazy idea of the combined strength of their two hands.

Stern had developed and drilled his team to play Vienna, a highly conventional system. The main feature was that all weakish balanced hands were opened one club, and all strong hands one no-trump, regardless of distribution. " With all its faults, it still gave the players an early appreciation of the approximate final optimum contract.

Rigid and unyielding, the system was so complicated and artificial’that one wrong bid led to so many ramifications that disaster was inevitable. The players therefore no longer used their judgment, no bad thing in the 19305.

Stern's disciplined team was almost bound to defeat the rather heterodox collection of individualists opposed to ■ them, brilliant card players though each may have been. Eventually the Austrians won easily and convincingly, largely because they made fewer bad bids

and made fewer stupid mistakes.

This deal gives a reasonably fair indication of the type of bridge played in the thirties.

With both sides vulnerable, when the English were North-South, they reached a somewhat tenuous contract of five spades. To give some idea of the style of the English bidding. North opened one heart, a call that occasioned no comment at the time, but which would be frowned on now. South understandably had visions of a slam, but eventually stopped short.

On a trump lead five spades could well have gone down, but West led a club. Guessing well, the declarer played the queen from dummy. When this held he had few

worries, eventually making twelve tricks when everything went well. No doubt North-South were well pleased with their score of 680, but when the board was replayed at the other table, where the English were East-West, they were deceived by a classic psychic bid. The auction was:

After his partner had passed, and East had opened one diamond, Schneider took the view that game was unlikely for his side. To disguise his hand he overcalled two clubs, and his opponents swallowed the bait. West, to show his stop in clubs called two notrumps and East made a sporting raise to three. After Schneider had happily doubled. North led a club. South won with the ace to run off six tricks in spades. At an early stage North discarded a big heart, and so after taking his winners South led a heart allowing his partner to make the ace and queen. Five down doubled vulnerable amounted to a penalty of 1400 for the Austrians, an'd a lot of fun for the spectators.