A BLAZE IN THE HAND

New Zealand Listener, Volume 25, Issue 649, 7 December 1951, Page 25

A BLAZE IN THE HAND

ce HIS is a tale of vice and sorrow." One does not often hear,a phrase like this from 1YC, a station given mainly to the arts and to the politely formal language of their critics. Sports commentators speak straight from their hearts, and in this case Bruce C. Bell

ang Len sAVICHK1LNOp were devoting their Bridge on the Air session to the No Trump Bid. "For some reason or other the No Trump Bid brings eut the worst in human nature." It certainly brings out human nature. A man sees a general sort of blaze in his hand, he bids it without adding, he misses a mean slam

in clubs the cautious type would have found, he is down in No Trumps. He is the uncalculating romantic of bridge players, the Cyrano de Bergerac who spends his whole purse in one day. "Jeter ce sac, quelle sottise!" "Mais quel geste!" When I graduated from auction at the table of my father, an inveterate No-trumper, I found that neither Culbertson nor two-pence a hundred cramped these characters. But the Culbertson No Trump had no panache, It knocked out the suits with a blunt instrument, and recriminations were acid and precise, Similar language crops up in chamber music, though not publicly, when a pianist joins a string quartet. The piano score looks handsome, the notes may be the merest supporting accompaniment, but the pianist will play them as game in No Trumps. Bridge is the chamber music of games. It comes over the air with the same lucid pleasure, building up by "artificial response" and "raise into a major suit," like an exposition of musical form. Both Mr. Bell and Mr. McKillop expertly developed their theme, which on this evening was the Gladiator No Trump Bid, devised by the late Dr. Bruce MacKenzie. The system promises to restore subtlety to the No Trump Bid, and the name Gladiator surely reaffirms its defiance. There was even a loophole for 2 born No-trumper. We were told that the minimum for one of the bids was "36 points-or a good 35." A 35-point hand will always look good if you need 36 points to bid. The Jacks are almost Kings-they are Crown Princes anyway -that 3 of diamonds is bound to make with any luck-it’s really better than the conventional 36-pointer if you have vision. The experts finished with a reminder that whatever No Trump system was chosen, it should be used consistently. ° In fact, they said semper eadem, using another language we arts critics are shy

about. No-trumpers will easily manage the semper, but they are born of the

genus mutabile,

Nanook