A BRIDGE CLINIC

Southland Times, Issue 25341, 20 July 1935, Page 11

A BRIDGE CLINIC

AUCTION AND CONTRACT

SYSTEMS AND PLAY

(By

Horatius.)

Many players who use the Approach Forcing system find that their initia bids of “Two” go wrong. Partner keeps bidding open, and a game contract is reached but not fulfilled. Often it is because, although they have the requisite number of honour tricks to justify a “two” bid, the distribution is not of a pattern to produce game 11 partner has an unsatisfactory band. They forget that with 4-3-3-3 distribution 5-1 Honour Tricks is a bare minimum and even then a One bid will have advantages. Mr Culbertson, however, has introduced a new formula. “To make a forcing bid of ‘two’ you must have more honour tricks than losers.” This rule is held to be better than the rigid requirement of five honour tricks in the hand and allows you to bid on certain exceptional distributions with as little as four honour tricks. Locating the Singleton King. An amusing instance of a lead which unwittingly revealed the singleton king of trumps, and so cost a small slam, was noted in play during the weekend. In a husband and wife partnership South dealt as follows: —

S: A-K H: A-10-x-x D: A-10-x C: Q-x-x-x S: Q-x-x-x-x N S: J-x-x H: x-x-x W E H: K D: Q-x S D: K-J-x-x-x C: J-x-x C: 10-x-x-x S: 10-x-x H: Q-J-9-x-x D: 10-x-x C: A-K

Other interesting features of this hand were the bidding and the manner in which South set out to win her difficult contract. The bidding:— S. N. 1H IS INT 3D 3NT SNT 6D 6H North’s first response is “One Spade,” because (a) on the “one-over-one principle it keeps the bidding low with the certainty of it remaining open, and (b) it paves the way to a “five notrumps” on three aces and the king of a bid suit. South keeps screaming out, “Minimum Values—let it drop!" But North refuses to listen. Finally South "signs off” for the third time, but gets landed in the small slam in spite of all her protests. West leads the Queen of Diamonds. Declarer (South) puts up dummy’s Ace and, playing up to her Ace and King of Clubs, re-enters dummy with aSpade, and discards a losing Diamond on dummy’s Queen of Clubs, leaving herself with still one small Diamond to lose. Now that loss is inevitable so she plays a diamond from dummy, intending, perhaps, to ruff the third round and then finesse the King of Hearts But East, who can count the Diamonds, wins with a Knave, and then leads the King of Diamonds, hoping that his partner can over-ruff. South puts up the nine of trumps, and West is unable to trump higher. That indicates that East holds the King of Trumps, so South, having everything to gain and nothing to lose, plays out the Ace of Trumps from dummy and catches the King, winning the slam. Had the situation not being given away so blatantly South would have finessed against the King and lost the contract. Bluffing a System. Systems can defeat their own ends when staunch adherence to them is pre-supposed and a keen player may take advantage of this fact; as this hand from play shows:—

S: 9-8-4 H: J-10-7-6 D: K-4-2 C: 10-3-2 S: A-K-J-10 N S: Q 6-5-3-2 W E H: 4 H: 9-8 D: A-9-8 S D: Q-J-10-7-6-5-3 C: G C: 9-5-4 S: 7 H: A-K-Q-5-3-2 D: None C: A-K-Q-J-8-7

Here it is evident that West has only to lead a Spade to defeat the contract. But because South was using the Sims Three Bid to show a “rock crusher,” a certain game hand with slam possibilities, West read him when he went to “Seven Hearts,” as void in Spades. So West opened with the Ace of Diamonds and South made his contract. Against Seven Hearts West has a certainty of defeating the contract. But South relies upon West not leading Spades because of the system. West does exactly what is expected of him, but don’t try this often. Mr Munning Foster is the foe of American systems, and particularly of the Approach-Forcing; he is the advocate of his own simple system, which aims at being innocent of conventions, though it has to use one or two. This conflict of systems frequently makes Mr Manning Foster amusing. For instance after a recent tournament he came out with this statement: “I have not a complete record of the 112 hands played. But it is quite clear that on the vast majority of hands it does not matter in the least what system is used. The result is the same, while in the more difficult and ticklish cases it is impossible to draw definite conclusions. All that can be said is that on critical hands some players take what happens to be the right view and others the wrong. You may call it superior skill, ‘flair,’ sounder judgment, or mere luck. But you cannot attribute it to System.”

He asks one to consider a concrete case:

S: 6-5-4 H: Q-8 D: 8-5-3 C: A-Q-9-3-2 S: K-J-10 N S: 9-8-7-3-2 H: J-7-3 W EH: 10-5-2 D: A-K-9-4 S D: Q-J-7 C: J-10-7 C: 5-4 S: A-Q H: A-K-9-6-4 D: 10-6-2 C: K-8-6

On this hand he says: “It will be seen that Four Hearts or Three No-Trumps can be made by South. Yet at only three tables was the game declared. At two' of them the game contract was doubled. At others the final declaration was (1) Three Hearts, (2) One Heart, (3) Four Clubs, (4) Two Hearts, (5) Three Clubs.

On the Simple System he says the bidding goes: S, One Heart; N, Two Clubs; S, Three Clubs; N, Three Hearts; S, Four Hearts. The explanation of this bidding is that when S opens with One Heart and N bids Two Clubs, which S supports, N can place S with plus values and re-bid Hearts, knowing that if S has only Four Hearts he will return to Clubs. S having Five Hearts and Ace of Spades, is then justified in the game bid. “Of course, there is no certainty Against a Heart declaration the three Diamonds must be lost if played out at once, and there is no assurance that Hearts and Clubs will break evenly. My point is that those who arrived at a game contract did so without the aid of system. The only difference is that the One Club bidders would start with One Club to show three and a half tricks, instead of One Heart —the natural and direct call. Then N replies with One Diamond because he has not enough to show a suit, and S bids One Heart.” The system Mr Manning Foster devised may be simple but it is still a system but it fails in actual play more often than the system he condemns. Apply the Approach-Forcing to these hands and the bidding goes: S. N. 1H 2C 3H 3NT South counts his hands in Hearts for 6J playing tricks (the King of Clubs becomes 1) and going to Three Hearts forces North to game in No-Trumps or Hearts. INTER-CITY MATCHES. A bridge match was played on Saturday night in Invercargill between teams of four players representing the Dunedin Bridge Club and the Invercargill Club at duplicate contract bridge. The match was played at the home of Mr F. Hall-Jones, where the visitors were very hospitably entertained. The match ended in a win for Dunedin by the substantial margin of 4300 points. The Dunedin players had the advantage of having played previously in a number of duplicate matches and the obvious lack of this experience certainly affected the Invercargill team’s bidding. Thirtytwo hands were played, but the hands were as a whole of a prosaic nature and there was no slam bids or even possible ones. This is probably the first inter-city match that has been played in New Zealand and it is hoped that it will be the forerunner of many future matches with other centres.

Major Ashworth, of Christchurch, has invited a Dunedin team to visit Christchurch to try conclusions with the best players there at an early date, and it is hoped that a strong team will be available to go.

The bidding was:— S. W. N. E. 3H 3S 4H No 6H 6S No No 7H Dbl No No No