AUCTION MADE EASY

Taranaki Daily News, 20 November 1926, Page 7

AUCTION MADE EASY

THE ART OF BRIDGE PLAYING. SOME OBVIOUS RULES. (By '‘Peter.") No. 8. And here let one thing be made clear Reasonable proficiency at auction bridge, which makes the game more fascinating to the player concerned as well as for more enjoyable for his associates, is quite a simple accomplishment. But it will never be acquired merely by memorising rules of play, unless at the same time the underlying reasons for those rules is fairly comprehended. Why must you lead the highest of your partner’s suit? Because otherwise, of course, that wretched man will have not the faintest notion where the cards lie. If you lead your best card in his suit, he knows instantly, looking at dummy's hand and his own, what the enemy's concealed hand holds in that suit. The art of good auction bridge is to be constantly giving your partner all the information possible about your hand. Observe two contrasted "instances. Yon are on the player’s left, about to open with a lead through dummy, and you hold queen, jack, ten and one of two small cards of one suit. If you lead the lowest of your sequence, the ten, your partner will assume that the player, as neither dummy’s nor his own hand holds them, has the queen and jack. Therefore you must lead your highest of the sequence, if that is the suit you are going to open. And, failing some, strong indication from- your partner, that would make quite a sound lead. But now suppose you sit on the other side, between dummy and the player of the hand, and your partner has led through dummy up to you. In that ease, of course, instead of your highest, the queen, you play the lowest, the ten, of your nice little sequence. Because, as it compels the player to take the trick either with the ace or the king, it at once shows your partner where the intermediate honours are. Precisely the same rule, obviously dictated by common gumption, would apply whatever your sequence, even though you held even the king and queen, or jack and ten only. There is another handy little auction bridge convention, from which the writer has borrowed his nom de plume, known as “Petering.” How often it happens, that, the enemy having won the auction, the player who opens the lead has a fairly long suit with the ace and king. It is the same thing often enough if he has an ace and king tapping a four suit. He leads his king, and, from his own hand and that of dummy, infers that either his partner or his opponent has only two cards in that suit. It follows that someone will, therefore, be able to ruff the third lead. But there in dummy is the queen and two others of that suit. His king makes, so will his ace, but how about the third lead?

Is he going, by leading out his two top honours, to present a perfectly gratuitous trick to the foeman! The problem he has to solve is whether his opponent, the player of the hand, or bis partner, the charming friend opposite, is short-suited and able to trump, if it happens to be the latter, or get in n useful and perhaps crucial discard from his own hand, if the former. This is just where “Petering” comes to the rescue. If your partner, or anybody else for that matter, leads a suit of which you hold only two small cards, that suit not being trumps, always play the higher first. The process then works thus. Your partner has led his king. You throw a seven on it. He leads his ace. You discard a three. You have well and truly “Petered.” With absolute confidence J-our partner leads the same suit again, for the third time, knowing, as positively as though you had told him so, that you will ruff the third lead.

Of course, if you hold two cards only, of which one is a king or queen, you do not “Peter.” That would be throwing away a perfectly good card. Thus it is plain how important it is to watch the fall of every card in a hand of auction bridge. If you see your partner “Peter” on a lead, whether your own or tlw opponent’s, and trumps have not been drawn, you know that, by leading that suit on the first opportunity, you will give your partner a chance to make a small trump safely on a good card, or, if you happen to be the holder of that good card, to discard some other card that may enable him to transfer his ruff to one of the good cards in another suit held by the opponents. If the position of the play, or your partner’s trumps, make a ruff inadvisable, he can easily avoid the necessity by refraining from “Petering.” That useful little convention, played by everybody anywhere, is a signal that the “Peterer” wants another lead, and he could want it only in order to ruff. The ebb and flow of many a hard-fought rubber has been crucially swayed by an adroit “Peter.” And let us here make another point clear. There are players who confuse the golden rule against leading a suit that the player- of the hand can trump from eitlyr his own hand or dummy’s—one of the most exasperating ineptitudes of all, actually presenting the enemy with a gorgeous chance to make his trumps count twice—with the rule that enjoins the lead of a suit the player trumps in one hand only, and that his own. Never hesitate to lead a suit because the player is going to trump it from his own hand, unless by so doing you are going to establish master cards in that suit in the dummy hand. It is always a good thing to extract a trump card from the player's hand. It weakens him every time, and that without enabling him to make any trick which otherwise he might not have made. But of course, if the player is going to trump your best card, leaving the next best in dummy, with some card of re-entry to enable him to get into, dummy and play that master later, you refrain from giving him that opportunity. But place yourself definitely outside the pale of those idiotic players who say: “I didn’t know what to lead, partner, because he was trumping my suit.” That’s just what you want him to do, other things being agreeable. When you happen to be playing the hand yourself, I can assure you every trump your opponents force from your hand, without drawing theirs in return as you Would by leading trumps, is anything but a cause of elation. Lead away with the suit you know the player must trump from his own hand, aud, while denuding him of trumps, force him to lead up to you. There are exceptions to this rule, but rare ones, and, for novices, might almost be ignored. It may happen sometimes, however, that you Want, without enabling the player to get in and lead- out trumps, to score tricks in other suits that might otherwise be lost by discards from either dummy or his own hand, or it may be occasionally that you want to avoid the player getting in - and getting out trumps, in order to work a joyous crossruff.