BRIDGE TACTICS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21600, 22 March 1932, Page 10

BRIDGE TACTICS

SYSTEMS OF BIDDING WEAKNESS OF FORCING “PSYCHIC” CALLS USELESS. Be of good cheer, you players at contract bridge. When the present raging battle comes to an end, it may be that you will have a better chance of escaping the sad fate of the Kansas City husband, writes John Coggswell in the San Francisco Chronicle. Certainly you remember that incident, and it is well that you should, especially when your partner in life becomes your partner at the bridge table. The lady in question shot her husband because of his bad bidding. Now, even the most rabid of contract players will agree that the lady was a little hasty, in spite of the great provocation, but the incident does show the dangers that have developed in the present state of the game called contract bridge. Even the original game of whist, invented a couple of centuries ago, soon became a fomenter of hard looks and hard feelings. The close of last century brought bridge whist, and the beginning of this saw auction bridge in its infancy. Both of the whist developments brought in the bidding element and added to the intricacy of the game. In the original game of bridge the dealer or his partner named the trump; in auction all players took a hand in the bidding, but sought to win the declaration at the powest possible bid.

Then came contract, which called for an absolutely new sort of bidding, designed to show the maximum tricktaking power of two combined hands, for in contract only the tricks bid count towards game. In it the rewards for fulfilling the contract are much larger than in auction, also the penalties for failing are more severe. Slams, either small or grand, pay a tremendous score. If auction bidding is at all intricate, then contract bidding calls for the brain of a mathematician. It is only natural that in such an intricate procedure a large number of systems, sponsored by super, pretty good, and near-experts, should have developed. And they did, to the everlasting consternation of the Kansas City man and to the peace of mind of most contract players who take the game at all seriously. ALL DIFFERENT. It was not at all extraordinary to find that among four people sitting down for a few rubbers of contract no two favoured the same system. And, of course, in such a game it is bad psychology to allow your partner to think that he has anything that is better than you have. So they would go gaily along, each bidding his own system and talking loud and getting red in the back of the neck. Recrimination became a fine art at the bridge table, and vilification quite the proper thing. Of course, the introduction of a new game was good for the bridge experts, especially those who make a living off the so-called pastime. Each invented a system of bidding and taught it. But after a few years they saw that the confusion of systems was likely to kill the new game and force the great mass of bridge players back to auction. So the super-experts got together to see what could be done in the matter of standardising contract bidding. “Glad to see you fellows are getting some sense,” announced Ely Culbertson, “Now that you’re getting reasonable, we can all agree to go ahead and play the Culbertson system.” The followers of Ely Culbertson prefer to stalk their prey, sneaking up on it by a devious route, starting with the lowest possible bid and working up by gradual steps. The common-sense advocates assert that such a system may eventually arrive at the best declaration, but that in doing so the bidders inform their opponents of the location of just about every card in the pack not held by themselves. It would be a fine system, they state, if each pair could go into a side room to do their bidding and then come back and make their declaration.

Culbertson makes every bid of two a forcing bid—that is, one that requires the partner to keep the bidding open, no matter how weak his holdings. The official system recognises no forcing bid save the two-club artificial declaration and the “jump shift” bid. “ PSYCHIC BIDDING.”

Over in New York recently Wyman and Shepard Barclay gave a most amazing demonstration of psychic bidding—that is, of bidding suits not held, to confuse the opponents. Two lady teachers of bridge, from Baltimore, desiring to know more about psychics, asked the two men to play several rubbers with them, and to use the false bidding freely. Throughout both rubbers Barclay and Wyman invariably bid suits in which they were weak, and to cap the climax a partner responded in a suit in which he held little or nothing. Contrary to the usual experience, the psychicers never met with disaster, to the amazement of the onlookers, who listened with awe to somewhat involved explanations of the psychology behind the bids. When the game broke up, however, the secret came out. Wyman and Barclay had got together before the play and agreed on a bidding system in which a bid of clubs meant strength in diamonds; a bid of diamonds, strength in hearts; hearts, strength in spades; spades strength in no trump; and no trump, strength in clubs. Of course, such a secret system is not allowable in bridge, but it furnished a lot of amusement.

Consider one hand. Wyman bid a no trump on six clubs headed by the king, five diamonds to the ten, no hearts, and two small spades. One of the Baltimore ladies, sitting on his left, with a hand that counted 30 at no trumps, feeling that she could double any further bidding and score a tremendous penalty, passed. Barclay, with an absolute bust, but with five small diamonds, felt it was wise to protect against further passing, so bid two clubs. Fourth hand bid two spades, which Wyman doubled and Miss Baltimore redoubled joyfully. Barclay, continuing his part of the hocuspocus system, bid three clubs. Fourth hand passed, and so did Wyman. CHEATED. Then Miss Baltimore decided to go psychic herself and bid only three spades, instead of a game-going declaration, hoping to lure her opponents to a four bid in clubs or three no trumps and make a large winning on the penalty, which was certain. But the two men were done bidding for the evening. Everybody passed, and the Baltimore ladies played a declaration of three spades to a grand slam, but failed to score name, as they had not bid it. “ Disregarding the hocus-pocus of the system we employed’,” said Wyman, that hand shows the futility of psychic bidding. Had Miss Baltimore not decided to go psychic herself, the two ladies would likely have arrived at a slam bid and made the large score resulting from taking all the tricks. The most successful players, to-day, are going ahead with their honest bidding and paying no attention to the efforts of their opponents to confuse them. “Once in a great while a psychic bid does give good results. 1 was sitting third hand and held nothing higher than a nine. My partner dealt and passed; second hand also passed* With

the two hands ahead of me without a bid and I with an absolute bust, I knew that the fourth hand must hold most of the high cards in the deck. So I bid a club on four of that suit to the nine. “The fourth hand immediately bid two no trumps, holding the ace, king, and Jack of clubs, all the other aces, and some kings and queens. As they were playing the forcing jump shift, the partner showed some strength by bidding three no trump, and the original bidder carried the declaration to seven no trumps, a grand slam. MISSED THE SLAM. “ When dummy went down, it showed five small clubs and all the honour cards not held by the closed hand, except the queen of clubs. Remembering my club bid, the bidder, of course, placed the club queen in my hand, and when he used the last re-entry in his partner's hand ne took the club finesse and lost to the singleton queen in my partner’s hand. Thus the grand slam bid was defeated by one trick. You never saw a madder man in your life than that declarer. In super-expert circles to-day there are two schools of bidding, neither of which uses forcing bids of two or three in suit. One school believes in bidding in ways which will lure their opponents into declarations that can be doubled and heavily penalised. If the opponents start-bidding, they will deliberately pass even with strong hands, in hopes that the original bid will be denied and higher bidding follow at which a double will be profitable. “ The members of this school call themselves ‘The Sockets,’ but they are dubbed ‘ Hyenas ’ by the proponents of aggressive bidding. The aggiessive bidders call themselves ‘ The Lions, and say that they are willing to battle live opponents while Hyenas live off dead bodies. In turn, the Sockets call the self-styled Lions ‘ The Suckers. One of the Sockets recently remarked, ‘ I have yet to see a lion eat a live hyena, but I have seen many a live hyena eat a dead lion.’ ” “ Let us remember,” continued Mr Wyman, “that contract bridge is a game and not a creed or a religion. Ao a game it must be enjoyable or it ceases to be a pastime. Many people are so constituted mentally that they are unfitted to enjoy a partnership game. Such people should not play contract, for in contract the obligations of partnership are paramount.”