THE BRIDGE TABLE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19762, 8 October 1927, Page 5 (Supplement)

THE BRIDGE TABLE.

THE SPIRIT OF THE LAWS. BY MAJOR TENAC'E. Some questions which have been put to me recently by correspondents and friends suggest that a word may not be out of place as to the spirit in which the laws should be interpreted. There are and always have been a, large number of players who are very leluctant to claim any penalty allowed by the laws; they refuse to call exposed cards; treat a lead from the wrong hand as an exposed card instead of calling a suit; and in a* thousand other ways let the offenders off as lightly as possible. This attitude is easily understood, but it is wrong; and the error has been pointed out so many times that I am afraid that some players have goue to the ether extreme and not only claim every penalty for which an opponent is liable, as they should do; but are apt to strain the wording of the laws and to regard anything not expressly permitted by the laws as forbidden. The following two questions which were submitted to me recently illustrate what I mean:— B and Z were keeping the score. At the end of the rubber game Z entered the score of the last hand, added up and declared the total, and then fell into talk before B had entered the score of the last hand. During the talk A suddenly, woke up to the fact that he had held four honours in one hand in the last hand, and asked Z to credit him with them; but Z refused on the ground that the rubber was finished. Was Z right ? During the play of a Jt hand the attention of Z, the declarer, was distracted for a moment and he forgot whether the next lead should come from his own hand or from dummy. He asked A, who refused to give the information. He then asked dummy, who told him; whereupon the asked opponents claimed the penalty for dummy's indicating to his partner in which hand the lead lay. Could they do this ? Fact and Simple Courtesy. Now in the first question a fact is in dispute. Was the rubber finished or was it not. Laws 11 and 12 both lay it down that the rubber game is not finished until the scores are made up and agreed, and neither of these things had been done. Z has no right to assume that because B does not object at once to his total he agrees with it. The laws stop a very long way short of that. The second question is not covered by the laws, and for a simple reason; as the laws are not framed for sharpers, so they are not framed to supplant the ordinary courtesies of life. A, "as a matter of courtesy, should have told declarer where the lead lay; but A having failed in this respect, the dummy , may give the information without incurring any y penalty. The Card Committee of the Portland Club had a case very similar to this before it some years ago. 1 cannot lay my hand on the decision for the moment' though 1 am certain that this was the effect of it; and I will remember that the dry formality of the wording had a more biting effect than the most caustic comment. « The correct attitude toward all breaches of the laws is, I think, this:— Where a law has been broken, and the breach admitted, the penalty should be claimed and paid as a matter of course; and where a choice of penalties is allowed, the player with whom the choice lies should claim the one which best suits his game. But where the breach is in doubt, and neither the laws nor the published case decisions settle the point, the offenders should be given the benefit of the doubt, and the case submitted for a ruling. Fair Play. Another matter vital to the amenities of the game is the acquisition of good taole manners. Auction, unlike its old predecessor whist, or even its immediate parent bridge, is a most difficult game to play with absolute fairness. Between the innocent question asked by the old lady after a careful examination of her hand, " What does ' Threepence Duty ' mean V and the emphatic " JS'o bid," which warns partner as plainly as possible against continuing with his suit* there are * thousand ways in which a player may give illegal information about his hand. And the trouble is that he may often offend merely through excitement, or anxiety, without any intention of playing unfairly. It) is very difficult in the course of, say, two long rubbers when there have been some sharp changes of luck to make every bid in the even, uniform voice demanded by the etiquette of the game, and to restrain every significant gesture. Yet until a player has acquired the necessary self-control—that is ail good table manners amounts to—he will cause ill-feeling among his opponents and discomfort to his partner. I think the best training ground is a crowded card room where tho players must pitch their voices low for fear of disturbing other tables. One cannot put much expression into two words spoken just above a whisper, and, the habit of making bids in this tone acquired, one is well on the way toward playing the game fairly. Short Minor Suit Bids. I have received a letter from a correspondent strongly approving an article I wrote some time ago in favour of bidding short minor suits initially in order to show quick tricks. He points out an advantage of this call which I had omitted. Where the opponents secure the final declaration in a major suit, it secures a lead which produces two tricks, and that is halfway to saving game. My correspondent proceeds :—" And for this purpose the shorter the suit, the better. There may be no second round of a suit of five or six. It is almost a certainty in a suit of two." I agree about this advantage; but if my correspondent is inviting me to advocate bidding a suit on two cards, I must decline. This seems to me to b? pushing the argument too far altogether.