THE BRIDGE TABLE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20596, 21 June 1930, Page 29 (Supplement)

THE BRIDGE TABLE.

RIDDING CONVENTIONS, BT KAJOE TENACK. I have always held that, with the single exception of the informatory double, bidding conventions are not necessary, and I am of that opinion still after playing modern contract for more than a year, both with.and without their aid. But I think the persistence with which they are pnt forward one after the other is strong presumptive evidence that our card legislators, in both England and America, have forgotten their business. What, after all, is a convention ? It is an extra legal understanding or agreement to allow the game to be played more scientifically than it can otherwise be played. Surely it is the business of our legislators to see that the laws permit the most scientific form of game to be played. This, I imagine, was the goal which Hoyle had in view when ho drew up his rules of whist. It was certainly the sole object of Henry Lorraine Baldwin and his associates in framing the laws of short whist in 1863. But has it ever occupied the minds of any legislative body since? I very much doubt it. When bridge succeeded whist, and again, when auction succeeded bridge, the object o! the legislators in drawing up the laws for the new game 3 was precisely the same as the object of the Portland Club in drawing up the laws for contract bridge: to make no change in the existing laws except those essential to fit the new game. This is proved by the fact that, until the revision of 1928, the laws of auction bridge were crammed somehow into the same framework as the laws of short whist, promulgated in 1863, and whole passages of the original whist laws remained unaltered. Nor was any vital alteration made in the laws of 1928. The framework was changed on the advice of lawyers to make the code clearer, not to make the game better. Thus with the advent of each new game, the laws of the existing game have been changed, not to allow the new game to be played as scientifically as possible but only to allow it to be played at all. The Source of Contusion. Let us take, as an illustration, the way the bidding has been treated, for it is out of this that all our troubles have arisen. When bridge succeeded whist the law concerning the turn up of the last card was changed to allow the declaration; and again, when auction succeeded whist, the law was changed to permit every player in turn to make a declaration or bid. And as far as the law is concerned to-day, the functions of bidding are merely the combined functions of the turn-up at whist and the declaration at bridge, namely, to determine the trump and which of the four players shall play the dummy. But it is a commonplace of every textbook that the bidding has another function, in scientific play—to enable the partners to combine their hands to the greatest advantage; and this function has never been recegiused or provided forin the laws. Hence the inventions. The proof is almost stilf-evident. Everyone agrees that if partners are to. combine their hands to the greatest advantage it may be necessary for' one to demand a bid from the other instead of making a bid himself, and as the law does not permit this to be done, ingenious flayers have tried : to attach this meaning to certain bids. In the days when spades were worth only two and no trumps twelve, every spade bid had some artificial meaning, bat they all demanded partner to make another bid. The whole elaborate and clumsy machinery was swept away when the suit values were changed in 1914 > and for a time players contrived to worry along with the game as by law established. Only a Partial Solution.

But when the Americans discovered the informatory double, the whole trouble started again. If the informatory double had been able to provide completely for the omission in the laws, no doubt it would have been the last invention. of its kind; but from its very nature it could not provide completely for the omission. The double cannot be called until an opponent has made a bid, so that, while it enables the second and fourth players after the initial bidder to demand a bid from partner, it gives no facilities to the player' with the initial bid, and the Yanderbilt club and other late inventions have been designed to fill this want. . With the Vanderbilt club and the informatory double, bridge is probably as scientific and interesting as it can be made; but it is too complicated for the ordinary player, and unless some effort is made to simplify it, the ordinary player will abandon it for something else. The work of simplification is the clear and urgent duty of the legislative bodies. Next week I will suggest one way in which it can bo carried out.