Duplicate Bridge

Hawera Star, Volume L, 20 December 1930, Page 18

Duplicate Bridge

Ti HE bridge tournament at Almaeks Clubin which Britain was defeated —between four English and .four American players was not in any sense what it was called, “an international test match,” for the simple reason that the English team has been selected by one man, Colonel Walter Buller, who is himself a member of the team, says a writer on the “Sydney Sun.” It can make no claim to recognition as the best team Britain can put into the field, or perhaps I should say round a card table. No eonelusion about the relative standards of play in England and America therefore can be drawn from the result. But there is plenty of interest in the tournament apart from this. Bridge competitions are something of a craze in America, and interclub, inter-State, and national championship matches are a feature of the year’s sporting engagements. Indeed, the American team taking part in the tournament —Mr and Mrs Ely Culbertson, Mr Theodore Lightner, and Baron von Zedwitz—were the winners of tin l national championships, and may therefore claim to be the best team to represent, their country. But bridge competitions are unknown in England. because “Duplicate” Bridge, the only system which makes competitive .play possible, has not been tried, and the past tournament was a great departure. It may well create a taste for duplicate. If it does, real international contests will be possible and the next tournament may be a genuine “test match” between the four best English and the four best American players of the year. For those who know only the rubber-game played in clubs, and wish to follow the details of the tournament, the following particulars about the duplicate game may be useful. Duplicate is an American invention played under the laws of the Knickerbocker Whist Club of New York, which are adopted by the American Whist League. The underlying principle is that each deal is played in duplicate at as many tables as there are players for, but in order to avoid the time and ‘trouble involved in sorting out a number of packs into the same sets of hands, the packs are dealt simultaneously at each table, the hands kept separate during the play, and then exchanged for the packs from the other tables in such order as to ensure that each table plays every set of hands. So much for the duplicate part of the game. Now for the competitive feature. In duplicate matches for teams of four, the arrangement for the tournament at Almaeks, the four players of each team are divided into two pairs, and each play as partners at the two tables but sitting opposite ways of the table. Thus if one pair sit Y-Z at their table, the other pair of the same team sit A-B at the other table. This is to ensure that, when a pack has been played at one table and is passed to the other in a'regulation

How it is Played

Eliminating Luck

container which keeps the four hands separate, and indicates the hand which lias the initial bid, the player who gets the and with the initial bid at the second table is an opponent of the player who held it at the first, The accepted laws of the game are followed as. far as possible, but as rubbers arc impossible the scoring has been changed, Scores are fixed on a plus and minus system, with a bonus for game. When, as in the tournament ive are considering, contract bridge is played in duplicate. vulnerability introduces a further complication, but the Knickerbocker Club has overcome it by an arbitrary rule determining which pairs shall lie vulnerable, and when. A little thought about the complications of this‘system will, reveal the curious fact that the pair of a team sitting at one table are not in fact playing against the opponents at the same table, but against the pair of the adverse team sitting at the other table, and playing the same hands.

The whole object of duplicate is to eliminate luck from the game and determine the relative skill of two teams. It certainly does this, for Ihe four players of each team have played at one table or the other each of the four hands of every pack dealt, and if they finish a tongseries of deals with a higher score the conclusion is that they are a better team than their opponents. But plain duplicate does not determine pair rivalries. It does not determine, for instance. whether the pair of a team sitting A-B at one table are better or worse than the pair of the adverse team sitting A-B at the other table, for one pair may have stronger opponents than the other. The only way to determine pair rivalries is by progressive duplicate, in which partners progress from one table to another, much after the manner of progressive whist, but on a system which ensures that they do not meet the same pack of cards twice. 1. said at the beginning of this article that the English team cannot claim recognition as the best team which this country can produce. In saying that I intended no reflection upon the players, Mr Wood Hill. Mr Kehoc, Mrs Evers, and Colonel Walter Buller. They are no doubt as good a team as can be selected in the circumstances. At present it is quite impossible for any person or anybody to name the best player or the four best in the country, for bridge is entirely a private pastime and facilities for comparison are non-existent. But if the principal card clubs would organise dull duplicate matches, Britain or Australia might proceed to inter-club fixtures and county tournaments until they got a national championship fixture. A selection committee would then have some data to act upon in choosing the team to meet the pick of overseas players. Such a de velopment would enormously increase popularity of bridge in this country, and we hope to see it.