Judge — September 1933 — page 19: what you’re looking at

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

as Theory of Openi Trump Bids By Derrick J. Wernher P mon: T explained the require- vents, oth positive and negative, ior a Sims opening no tramp bid with a I understood ng no biddable suit rseli, arriy rand contain that Sims 7 trump games than the others: yet they to ye ayers at more no seem to pass many hands where we have heen told that a no trump bid would be is no inconsistency he tween these two statements, The fact ts that we arrive at eventual no trump con- tracts very easily through suit bi like anyone else: and we prefer suit bids to start with when the safety of u hand is doubtiul. Therefore, when we do bid no trumps, we are prepared for the proper.” There s. just a response on light holdings by partner; further, on sponse, we are prepared to continue the hidd open the bidding with one no trump, we 1 potential receiving a re ng constructively, since, when we substantial re! have very ties in the hand THE RESPONDING Your partner has Your hand may contain terial of three kinds: 1, You have no five card suit vour four card suit does not permit a HAND a ono trump response ma and hid under the conditions which [ will shortly describe; but you have some h cards, 2. You have one or more four card tits. five or m 3. You have a suit of cards, When unable to bid a suit your choice is limited to two alternatives: you must cither pass or bid two no trumps. It you hid two no trumps, your partner is absolutely bound to rebid; he must now hid either a concealed suit, if he chooses to do so, or three no trumps. There is no stopping at two no trumps after an opening bid of one no trump in the Sims em, because a two no trump re- sponse is not necessarily made on abso- it may be mad sys lutely minimum values ; made with a ha weak for trumps, which is a slam try. Remembering that your raise to two no trumps will lead to a game contract, at is the basis on which you must de- cide between passing and bidding two no trumps ? Throughout the Sims system, a naf- ural response conveys information that d which is only a trifle too jump raise to three no yall reasonable probability the opening hidder will be able to get into the re- sponder’s hand twice, prov ners find a misfit. tells 3 led the part leclaration which is ne The no trump yur partner that you believe your hand contains raise, therefore, sufficient high cards to provide two entries for him if the hand is played in no trumps. the great high car strength throughout the suits which i implicit in an opening no trump bid, high cards in the responding hand are automatically promoted probable trick takers to a far greater extent than when the bidding is opened with a bid one ina suit. Two king ire ample justification for a raise. Two of these three cards almost sure to provide entries, K also fulfills these requirements since the opener is virtually marked with the Ace On the other hand, an Ace in the re sponding hand with no other face does not justify the unt it for one sure trick and one sure In view of into and a queen no trump are yx d You can rais entry, but we need two probable entries in order to propel the hand towards game: Ace in one suit and Q 9 x in an- other, or A 10x in one suit and J 10 XX in another, would meet our This need for standard, two entries is not an urbitrary guide-post : it rests on a fun mental necessity which all experienced card players recognize: the ability to throw the lead, or to take finesses into the hand of the opponent on the de- er’s left in order to make that player lead up to the declarer’s hand in. the course of the play. When declarer can control the play to this extent, sketchy, doubtful no trump contracts are frequently fulfilled. When he is unable to manoeuvre the play in this manner and must either lead away from his own and repeatedly or make plays which very give the lead to the right hand opponent, even powerful no trump hands, which appear at first sight to be almost un- heatable, may be defeated. It is an other way of saying that the time facte is apt to melt away when you c: into dummy twice to make essential dot leads to your own hand OPENING BIDDER'S RERID On hearing the raise to two no trumps, the opening bidder must make a further move. Since we are now con- sidering only opening hands which have no hiddable suit, the only rebid is three no trumps. It is on this bidding that most of the no trump games ind seldom are these contracts are reache beaten more than one trick. [f beaten, Many cl fe because the advantage ely double derived by dec rer from the opening lead is repeated each time that his lef hand opponent is 10 ain made to lead uy hand. ecially to this ¢ concealed strong want tention es hand whi to draw your ieature: either the is played at one hh event the > trump, in strength of the opening bid is your safe guard against a serious di you get to three no trumps and have a y-to take tricks. The desperate predicament inherent in other methods of avoided; I r, or else reasonable pl most bidding is en- tirely mean the situation when the responder raises to. bidd has to make a very difficult decision—whether to pass and two no trumps and the opening srhaps lose the game, or to rebid and possibly incur a large pe ! stantial rebid material contained in the opening bid; material which is ni supplemented but actually multiplied by values promised in partner’s raise. We all know that the worse penalties in the past have resulted from doubled in no trumps, tract was for one, two or three. fear of ty 1e safety factor here is the very sub- only ands hether the con- such penalties is removed by unassailable Sims’ principles of no trump bidding and responses Next month [will explain the re- sponse procedure when the opening bid- der’s partner holds biddable suits arty Bridg By Wm, FB. MeKer HILE Contract is fast replacing Nuction bridge there are still a great many people who do not under- stand how to adapt Contract bridge to their Social parties. The type of brid to which thousands of bridge lovers are wccustomed is the game whereby you play four hands and then change part ners. When four players at ply pivot able sim among that is called Pivot bridge. But when the play- ers progress from table to table, that is known as Progressive bridge. Let me give you some of the governing rules for these types of game. The first and most important rule is how to govern the vulnerability of a hand. In rtibber bridge a side becomes vulnerable when it scores game, but in themselves, Pivot and Progressive bridge the vul- nerability must be ar itrarily set in When four hands are played at a table, the vulnerability for each deal is as follows: Ist deal, neither side vulnerable; 2nd and vance, 3rd deals, dealer's comicbooks.com