CONTRACT BRIDGE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22685, 24 March 1937, Page 7

CONTRACT BRIDGE

SWING HANDS STOPPING IN TIME I BY C. L. EASTGATE iii the handling of those important "swing" hands, not only is it necessary to take your courage in both hands sometimes, hut also to curb an impatience to reach the very top. Duplicate bridge performs this very useful function: it shows ns where wo jj;o wrong right at the time the oflenco |is committed, and there is more likeli- | hood, therefore, of the right bid or play being retained in the memory, j Playing in a tournament recently, ! the following hand came under niv i notice; there arc one or two points well ' worth noting: j North dealer. Neither side vulnerable.

My partner, who was sitting North, opened the bidding with one spade, Kast passed, and 1 bid two hearts. North (Kast-West passed all through), then made a jump rebid of three spades. The jump trump rebid is much i abused at times, but 1 could rely on my partner, and put him down with a good six-card suit and at least four honour-tricks in the hand, or, perhaps, a good five-card suit and 4.} honourtricks. You will see that if the partner's response can be relied upon, there is a distinctly "slammy" atmosphere, despite holding only two trumps. If North holds second-round control in the club suit and there are two aces in the hand, a small slam looks quite reasonable. So an asking bid was made of "live clubs" and a response of five notrump received, denoting either the ace of clubs and an outside ace, or second-round control in clubs and two outside accs. Six spades by South closed the bidding, and six spades were duly made, losing one trump trick. At the other table our opponents, without the help of asking bills, guessed at a grand slam in spades, which was defeated one trick. Result, a swing of lO.'iO points; or, if- vulnerable, 1030. Need lor Judgment 'J'hc first point worth noting is that when South made the asking bid of | five clubs, (lie reply, according to the : book, should be six no-trump, jv jump jof one being necessary when the rei sponder holds an extra ace. Situations I such as these, however, call, in my i opinion, for the exercise of a certain ! amount of judgment which the North player in this instance duly used. The i bidding of six no-trump naturally i forces the contract (when there is an agreed trump suit) to the range of I seven, and. although there may have been a technical breach in this instance, 1 am sure it would meet with i the approval of the inventor of the | asking bid. j Another point in connection with this ' hand was the curious fact that seven hearts could be made against any dej fence, on account of the quick setting ; up of the spade suit; after trumps are | drawn a spado can -bo discarded : from the South hand on the third club ! from North, and a spade ruffed, making the suit good. The contract of seven ! hearts, however, is very hard to arrive j at, and should not be bid, in preference j to the spades. A correspondent in the Bay of I Plenty sends me the following hand, and I wants to know how the asking bid | would apply, as six clubs can be made | on the hand, the hearts breaking:

Bidding the Higher Suit West, with two five-card suits, should bid the higher first; Kast, has j a strong hand, but cannot force to ' game as yet, so must bid "one heart," i which is a better bid than "two clubs." On West showing the clubs, however, j it is time he di 1 something, and his best bid is to ask in the unhid suit, | spades, although he holds first, second. ! and third round control himself. But | it. is the only suit he can ask in, and ; if West has two five-card suits in dia- ! monds and clubs, there is a reason- . able chance of his holding a singleton I spade. With this second-round control I he is able to show his heart ace, and denying any other ace. On the general bidding of the hand, his void in diamonds and strong holding in clubs and spades, Kast is justified in bidding ! the small slam. The jump asking bid in spades, of course, "sets" the club i suit, and it becomes the agreed trump •suit. In the accounts to hand of the NewZealand team's matches in Melbourne | and Sydney (all of which were lost) .Mr. Norman McCance. in the Argus and Ausj tralasian, comments on the New Zea- ! landers making use of the asking bids. ! From the tone of his remarks it could be judged (bat the .Australians have | not yet taken them up very serii ously, relying more on the Paehnbe system of bidding introduced by Mr. I Whitelaw in Australia. In one case, he | stales tliat our players bid the hand I perfectly with the aid of asking bids. but lost it on had play. Bad luck, but ' one is no good without the other. CURRENT EVENTS Last week the Northern C.8.0. introi duced a new competition, which will run throughout the season, a teains-of-four contest, with cumulative scoring. each team to plav each other team during the year. 'I here will be a championship, as well as a handicap side, some of the handicaps going as high as GO per cent, to be added to the gross score. Pitv the poor back-markers. Jhe results of the evening's play were as follows:—Mr. Stratton's team defeated Mr. Bruce-Smith's team by 2070 points; Mrs. Aeheson's team defeated Miss MacCorinick's team by 2270 points; Mrs. Sherlock's team defeated Mrs. Oa'ughev's team by 2200 points; Mr. 1 Tucker's team defeated Mrs. Hume's j team bv 2100 points; Mrs. Hamilton's I team defeated Miss Langley's team by ! .>{() points; Mrs. Nettleton s team dc- | feated Mrs. Hamlin-White"s team by 7070 points; Captain Barnes' team defeated Mr. Wvlio's team by 2i)o points; Mr. Kastgate's team defeated Mrs. G'leghorn's team by .'5920 points.