AUCTION MADE EASY

Taranaki Daily News, 27 November 1926, Page 9

AUCTION MADE EASY

THE ART OF BRIDGE PLAYING PLAYING THE HAND (By Peter—Copyright.) No IX So far the attempt liras been, as simply and briefly as possible, to explain the main principles of the auction, or bidding together with the tactics when playing, with a real live “meat partner, against the caller manipulating the dummy hand. We come now, in the language of Shakespeare, to the last stage "of all,” the actual business ot playing the dummy hand. Weak-kneed novices frequently funk that, ordeal, even at the cost of sacrificing a thundei - ing good game-and-ntbber call. We all Knoxv the shy gentleman, with moist palms and the coy lady, with the lipstick and the jingly sequin-purse, whose invariable hot-and-bothered attitude is. “I would much rather you played the hand, partner." Now the plain fact is that playing the dummy- hand is about the easiest job of all. The player in that happy position is the only one wl’.o knows definitely and positively what his partner. and his opponents, have in their hands. He is the only one whose strategy is proof against some fatal misunderstanding between himself and his partner. His advantages are, like the wicked uncle’s misdeeds in Hamlet, •■gross and palpable.’’ Therefore take heart when you are called on to play the hand, and keep cool as an iced cucumber. Directly the opponent on your left has led, and dummy's wealth or poverty lies revealed upon the table, take rapid but precise' stock of your position. Now is the time to pause a little, not later when you are briskly engaged, playing the cards. Comparing* at a glance your two bands, your own and the dummy's, assess your certain, and then your potential tricks. Thus you will see at once whether the making of your call is straightforward play, or to what extent you must rely for a trick or two on your judgment in finessing or in forcing a lead from the right direction. Never touch a card in your own or dummy’s hand until you have firmly and irrevocably made up your mind to play it. Nothing is more irritating than a player who fumbles about with the cards,’ hesitating, and havering, and wasting time. And never tot-get which of your two bands took the last trick, and* therefore must be led from. The bad habit of leading from the wrong band has brought low many a promising rubber call. It has also, in the hands of unscrupulous players whose opponents were card-table* somnambulists or novices, gained many nefarious points. In that case it almost serves the defrauded players right. It is most essential to keep awake at cards. Auction Bridge is a game of concentration and observation.

One excellent rule for the player of the dummy hand is that made famous by the L.G.O.C. "Safety First.” Do not throw away your call, a thing fatally easy at no-trumps especially, in a rash endeavour to score over-tricks. But, on the other hand, respect your partner s feelings as a silent spectator, limited to the one stereotyped but vital inquiry whenever you fail to follow suit, by making every possible bid for safe overtricks. And here we come up against the golden rule. It applies always and to everybody, but most of all to the player of the dummy hand. Always count the cards. Only so can you be sure when you have drawn all the trumps in your opponents’ hands, and can safely proceed to make your outside tricks. But yoit really must count, not only trumps, but the other suits too. How many million tricks, in the monstrous aggregate, have been thrown away, by failure to observe that very simple, obvious, and easy precaution, I should not like to guess. Counting the cards of all suits, so that you know how many are still “out” at any moment of the game, soon becomes a mechanical habit once it has been acquired. It will enable you, when you have mastered it—and the effort requires less intellectual stress than learning your A.B.G. —to know also, when you hold one of the' two last cards in a suit, whether yours or the enemy's, is the top dog. Tremendous issues may impinge on that. May be you will occasionally, like the best players, make a slip in memorising all the* cards of every suit. But never must you'be caught out about the number and importance of the trumps played and still to play. Unless you memorise trumps absolutely and infallibly your partner will have every right and reason to suggest that cross-word puzzles are your true metier. And plea.se assimilate this momentous fact once and for all. More games have been thrown away by failure to lead trumps, when playing the dummy hand, than by all tfie other sins of omission and commission in the Auction Bridge calendar. 1 have al ready quoted the threadbare card-table adage about all the best work-house beds being occupied by people who neglected to lead trumps. It is a facetious truism.

And avoid that equally threadbare excuse: “Partner, I hadn’t enough trumps to lead them out." It's verdant imbecility annoys partners whose mathematical education includes twice-one-is-twu. The fewer trumps you have —and, incidentally, if you have very few trumps, how came you to cal] them! —the more important it is to plfiy them. If your opponents make their trumps separately, they will by the elementary arithmetical rule just quoted, count twice instead of one each pair. Moreover, if you have been engaged in the very human, but perilous, pusuit of rubber-saving, and been forced a little beyond strict discretion, perhaps by a too optimistic partner, do not on any account refrain from leading trumps merely because dummy proves not to have any or more than one. If one and dummy have, as surely you must, good outside cards to make, the need for leading out your own trumps, and thereby drawing two for one, is the more clamant. Never mind if you have not got the ace or king. Out with them, finessing from dummy through your own hand if possible. ,

'And here let me utter another word of timely caution. 1 imv<, witnessed the debacle of many a good player, who ordinarily would never dream of failing to draw i t nips as soon as possible, merely because he attempted to secure a lead from the dummy hand first, with the laudable object of finessing u queen or jack in his own hand, 'this strategy must be practised with du“ observation and discretion. Never, merely in order to secure s lead of trumps from dummy up to your own

concealed hand, run the risk of being ruffed by your opponents. Sometimes even the best players must get caught this way, but very rarely though, for they well observe carefully their own and* dummy’s hand, as well* as the call ing of their opponents. Never risk a\ attempt to get into dummy, for a trump lead through your own hand, by playin t up to a top-honour suit in dummy that has been srongly called by either of your opponents or that you or dummy bold in unusual length. It is surely obvious how likely it is that one of your opponents will be short, or even minus, in that suit. And in any case the risk you run, in securing a dummy lead, 01 in finessing a card, must always be based on sheer necessity. If Hie devil drives, needs must; but try to keep his Satanic majesty on a curb rein. Don’t burn expensive caudles to him.