FEVER OF BRIDGE

Hokitika Guardian, 16 January 1932, Page 6

FEVER OF BRIDGE

NEW AMERICAN INDUSTRY CRAZE FOR. CONTRACT.

If Mrs Battle were alive, she would cast many approving glances on Americans as they play their contract bridge, states a New York correspondent of the “ Daily Mail.” She who loved “the rigour of the game ” would find herself thoroughly at home at a modern contract bridge party. She would find “a thoroughpaced vfTartner and a determined . enemy.” The only objection that she might make would be that the “clear hearth” would have given way to central heating. Americans, like Lamb’s famous old lady, carry their game to its" logical conclusion. They will have no “Indian d half players, no lukewarm gangsters.” That is why they have abandoned auction for contract. Auction, tfyey argue, is a child’s game to which few players will give any real attention because—why bid more tricks than you need? Whereas in contract you enjoy the full flavour of your own audacity, and, indeed, suffer disastrously if you do not bid to the full limit of your power. HUNDREDS OF TEACHERS. In their own enthusiastic way Americans have carried contract beyond a game until it is an industry. When one of their leading players can earn £50,000 a year at the game, contract has obviously got beyond a -pastime.

There are hundreds of teachers scattered throughout the country with pupils numbering hundreds of thousands, maybe millions. Books on the game are best sellers, and dozens may be bought on all aspects of it. Like all great movements, the present craze for contract centres round an individual. Mr Ely Culbertson, with his vivacious, challenging personality, has ranged the United States into two camps, those who play his bidding system arid those who are adopting what is known as the-' “official system,” of which the best known exponent is Mr Sidney Lenz.

INTERNATIONAL MATCH

Not content with his contest of wits against the “official system,” Mr Culbertson is organising what is already named the ‘ fin i.l Iron player tournament.” On January 20 sixteen hands will be broadcast for the “widest international match ever staged in history.” •Experts throughout the world will play these hands, but they can he picked up by ant T keen bridge players who care to organise a quartet. The bidding of selected players and their play of hands will be sent to the National Bridge Association, who will award cups to each country or region in the competition. • This present war of the bridge table has many amusing features. There are innocent players who believe that if they can learn by heart the system of their chosen expert, then they will automatically play as well as he does. Unforunately, when confronted with the cards dealt them, these sanguine folk find difficulty in flitting their knowledge to the hand before them. Sponsers of the official system recognise this when they state in their book that a pack of cards can be distributed into 53,844,737,702,830,237,440,000 combinationsSome players can be so guileless as to make any advice almost useless. ' There is a story of a woman from St. Louis who was playing with her husband as. a partner and found the thirteen spades- in her hand. “Darling,” she said, “what does one do when one has thirteen spades?” The remark lost her the bridge chance of her life. The hands were all promptly thrown in. The so-called “official” system is, of course, a misnomer. There can be no official system on the method of playing your hands. Mr Culbertson has said that his system is based on j the simple rule that your partner will be a “moron.” He admits also that your partner will so regard you. Therefore, he says, you must have a system of bidding as elastic as possible. You must approach by slow degrees to the highest bid possible in any given hand rather than by jumping into the deep end with the risk of Ireing left to struggle to shore as best you can.

The modern development of bidding offers endless fun to cartoonists.