Judge — August 22, 1931 — page 28: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

“How about playing a little joke on the boys?” “Tsk! Tsk! I was expecting a di- vorce this morning.” HOW G@D I© SOUR PRIDGE the most remarka rom J ite question of so-called psychic bidding at contract is going to most difficult one to handle. Unless something is done to curb this practice of “false-bidding,” it will comple ruin the game for thousands of play ers. At the start it was rather good fun to stick in a declaration on a miss- ing suit or bid a No Trump over the opponent's suit declaration, without holding protection in the bid suit; but the player was taking a sporting chance with the partne well as the emy, and the lightning might strike anywhere. If adversaries knew when a psychic was bid there could be no possible advantage in bidding it. When only the partner is aware of the tion, then it is much more serious ¥ unethical. Of course it docs not require a great deal of ingenuity to tip off the partner that a psychic is being perpetrated. There are dozens of ways of giving such unfair information, Starting a bid with a certain agreed-upon form, such as “I bid a Sp or “I ma it No Trumps"’—the at the begin- wz of the sentence informs partner that the bid is meaningless. In a recent tournament a number of “clev hic bids were given great prom in the newspapers. A player bids “One No Trump,” as dealer, on a hand that is absolutely trickless. He defeated, but makes a big gain because the adversaries have a game hand. Now, if someone will tell me why the psychic bidder's partner did not assist with two suits twice stopped and an honor heading each of the two remaining suits, I will be much relieved. On another deal the partner refused to assist a psychic bid, although he held five of the bid suit together with fair high-card assistance. If the psy- chic had been an honest bid, the ga could easily have been made. What mind readers these psychick- ers are! A few weeks ago a contract deal f e readers and fed correspondents send sta iustrating a hand that I played in a tournament at the Knickerbocker Whist Club. I was given great credit for my skilful play and up to date ex- actly fourteen readers have written asking for an explanation of my skill. ve up! The deal, as actually held, was as follows: ok QAKS6582 oQ9 akio @ 8763 oso 9 108642 ais Now was the dealer and started with a bid of two Hearts. I held the South hand and feared that my partner had overbid originally and would probably pass on the next round, so went for the limit with seven No Trumps. The deal was published with one of the opposing hands holding the Queen and nine of Spades only, and of course a Grand Slam could hardly be missed. As the cards really were, it was just a bit more difficult. The one chance was that the hand holding any three Hearts also held the Queen of Spades so that a squeeze play would be effective. The Diamond was opened and after the ninth trick South eld three Spades and a Heart with dummy down to four Hearts. East was compelled to unguard the Queen of Spades and as West had discarded all four Spades, not that it made any difference, I had the added pleasure of discarding the Ace of Hearts on the Ace of Spades. © ARRAY Ne YOR RATS SROMMART Fe CREDIT ENN MALDEN EIA: Premiih ake ite Papeete comicbooks.com