BIG.MONEY.STAKED

New Zealand Times, Volume LII, Issue 12211, 8 August 1925, Page 11

BIG.MONEY.STAKED

Player Loses asldk

Hi) war did more than inako the world- safe for democracy (writes tho special correspondont of the Sydney “Sunday Sun”). It educated England to play cards. Before the . conflagration of 1914, England was : not a great card-play-ing country. : Amerioa was, and so was Australia, but Tommy Atkins discovered the charm of the pack during the lulls in fighting, and the fascination was not destroyed hy peace. In this way England has become a card nation, perhaps as great as America. and last year no fewer than 4,712,000 packs were sealed for use in .Britain - BRIDGE THE GAME In the clubs, bridge is the game. Thedifficulty 'is that a member, is. privileged to cut, into a game provided a table has not its full equipment of six players, and a man is supposed to carry the burden he cuts as his partner without cotnplaint or comment. It is not Always so in actual practice maturally. In some of the biggSr clubs where the stakes are high, it is not unusual for a table to break up after one rubber, following an exchange of nods, if it is found that a newcomer is so weak as to spoil the game, ■ ... This is quite a common thing 'in some of the richer West End clubs. If the stakes were, only a shilling a hun-

dred,-fit would not matter, but where pounds are concerned with each game, amateurish) blunders cannot be tolerated. At one club which it would he.unfair to name, the stakes vary from 5s to £SO a-hundred points. Even at 5s a player can <win or lose £lO at a sitting, so that-when the stakes get up to the maximum, fwbich means 10s a point, serions inroads to your banking account are likely to be caused by a mistake. And'blunderers do play bridge, for this big money. There is one wealthy person known in Australia who is reputed to have lost £IO,OOO last year ar. bridge. He has a passion for the game, but' his card sense, is not as

abate as is his enthusiasm. He is popularly supposed to make* more mistakes in a rubber than a mediocre woman player does.

BEST PLAYERS IN THE WORLD There are three or four card geniuses in that club, who are said to be the : best flayers in the world. They, are ;as clever at bridge as the Hagens anji i Kirk woods and Whitcom'bee and. Mit- ' chells are at golf, and their names are knot found above newspaper articles, or 'On the title pages of bridge books. ■'These men possess a prescience, that • is' positively bewildering to a poorer . player. After the bidding and the first • lead thev have an uncanny way of placing the remaining forty-eight Cards. They seldom, if ever, make a mistake, and the consequence, is that their bridge ledgers are vefy healthy-looking records at the end of the twelve months. On the other hand, many a man has been forced into the bankruptcy court through a sheer inabaility to_grasp the intricacies of the game. It is so easy to lose a Tubber through failure to ap - preciate simple l little facta which to an expert are absurdly obvious.

The njost interesting card cluh in the world is the-Portland Club, whicn has just celebrated its centenary. It is the holy of holies of card players—the St. Andrews or the M.C.C. of cards and there is no club so exclusive as it- is. Its membership, remains round about ninety, and it is as difficult to enter its portals as it would be to walk uninvited into Buckingham Palace. According to the secretary, Major ' Collyer, men of under forty are not encouraged to join, and it would not .be prudent for any man to be a member unless he had an income of at least £IO,OOO a year. Candidates for membership dine and play cards at the club before their election, so that, their social qualities may be observed. One candidate dined and played a rubber, and it was generally considered that he would pass. But at the end of the rubber he was outrageously effusive. He actually, ventured to , shake hands with his partner, congratulating l'im on winning. That was the end if him. He might just as well have put his knife in his mouth at dinner. From this one might suspect" that high stakes are played in the Portland Club, and that only “the best’’ people need hope to assemble there. It is: related that when the war broke out the; Committee discussed; the qualifications of their members, and asked a millionaire, who though naturalised, had some German blood in his veins, to find a new cluh.

t The club is said to have originated in the practice of duelling: Perhaps -that is so, but the earliest record of, it. dated June 10th. 1816. mentions the - purchase of seventy-two packs of cards: .-proving that almost from its inception '.-ft.has been a card club. It was'reconstituted in 1826, as the Portland dub. a mere renaming, apparently: because tradition says that' lt Was an expedient .to cover the dropping of an objectionable member, who otherwise could not be excluded. RULES THE WORLD > The club has always been an authoritv on whist, and ever since bridge wss irtroduced by Lord Brougham, on his return from a continental tour, end whist was superseded, no one has dreamt of impugning the club’s Tight to. make the laws of the game. A committee sits weekly to settle disputes referred to it from all. parljp. The club's premises are udtMns to look at. but the card room, which >« really three rooms in one, will hold twelve to fifteen tables, and some, astonishingly good players assemble there. Bad ones would suffer the fate of. the. gentleman who shook hands with his partner. Solo whist lias not been placed there for twenty years, and there would be as much chance of organising a game of noker as there would be of playing Old Maid. In this, and. in other exclusive clubs, cards have/ a. very short life. A new pack is supplied for each rubber, and the rejects are sold at a price profitable both to the cluh and to the purchaser.