Evening Star Newspaper, September 21, 1930, Page 101

. THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, SEPTEMBER 21, 1930. & 7ue BriDGE FORUM A SENSE OF HUMOR IS A GOOD THING TO CALL UPON WHEN BILITY to take occasional defeat cheerfully is an essential ingredient in the make-up of a habitual win- ner. Sometimes the best of bidding is rewarded with a sound thrashing against which there is no possible defense. A sense of humor is a real asset at such times. "'he experienced bridger knows defeat may be lurking around the corner any one time, and aoes not let such incidents upset his confidence in the law of averages. It was laughable to see what happened to a very fair player who wound up as declarer with a contract of four spades doubled on this hand: ' A KJ2 ¥ KQJ109 ¥ None 4 None ¢ KQ832 o Q1086532 & KJ974 A A10987653 ¥ 7653 A & None His criginal three-spade bid was over called by West's four clubs, North called four dia- monds, East discreetly passed and South bid four spades, which was passed around to East, who doubled. North, feeling that he and his partner were “out on a limb,” feared a further take-out might make matters worse, so passed. HEN the king of hearts was led, South put on dummy'’s ace and almost wished he had redoubled—until he saw East trump it. The diamond return cheered him, but West's little trump revealed his fix to him. West promptly ran three heart tricks, and his last heart, trumped by dummy’s queen, forced East’s king and South's ace. East, of course, later scored his jack of trumps, making a total of six tricks for his side, and putting the declarer down three tricks doubled. “What would you have done?” his partner. “Your question,” he replied, “reminds me of the instructor at the medical college. He told of a man whose jugular vein and carotid artery were severed and asked a student what he would do in a case like that. His answer was ‘I'd die, too.”” And Now the Bridge Store. Bridge departments in big stores—sometimes called bridge shops—have been with us for several years, in different parts of the country, but it has remained for Brooklyn to take the lead with the first successful retail store de- voted entirely to bridge. e South asked Brid lge Intimacies. Who would ever think of Mickey Walker, world middleweight boxing champion, as a bridge player? He is one, and a pretty good one, even though he has not been .t it long. He has a home on the New Jersey seacoast &t Red Bank, not far from the Deal home of Mr. and Mrs. P. H. Sims, who are two of the world’s greatest. Nothing delights him more than to join them in a game of contract, during which they both ¢oach him in the most effective expert tactics. A Clear-Cut Case. “In an auction game,” writes F. J. H, “the leader against a no trump contract, no suits having been bid, held in hearts the A, J, 10, 5 and 3. His partner held K, Q 6 and 2. He led the jack and his partner played low. He then piayed his ace and partner again played low. Were his leads sound and should his partner have played his cards the way he did?” South’s jack lead was absolutely right. Holding three of the six top cards of the suit, two of them *touching,” he had an “honor combination” and should lead the top of the touchers, unless the touchers included ace and king, when the king would be the honor lead. In this case the jack was the top of the touch- ing honors. Partner, seeing 'that lead, knew the leader also held the 10 and at least one other com- bination card, which was either the ace or the 9. Regardless of which it was, his correct play was the queen, to “unblock.” His low play was absolutely wrong. Had he taken the trick with his queen, he should have returned the king, on which original leader would put the 5. his fourth best, and should follow with the 6, which original leader would take with the 10, conciuding by cashing his ace and 3. When partner played low wrongly to the first trick, however, thereby telling any conventional player he did not hold either the king or queen, the leader should not have followed with his ace, but should have led his fourth best, the 5. His partner now could still repair the damage done by his first wrong play by playing the king and queen in succession and following with his remaining card. Even with original leader making the incor- Tect second Jead of the ace, his partner eould BY SHEPARD BARCLAY. Drawn for The Star’s Sunday Magazine by F. Stroithmann Bon Voyage. The skies don't seem so bright today; My favorite partner’s going away; I hate to think of when he's gone; I'll do my best to carry on, But never can a partner play = Quite like the one who's gone away. The perfect partner’s hard to find; His qualities of hcart and mind Hold every worthwhile trait we know, And when it comes my turn to go I wonder if some one will say: “My favorite partner’s gone away.” have saved the day by playing his queen and taking the next trick with his king, re- his remaining little card for original leader to capture with the 10, so as to use his fifth card for the trick that prevented game. Summing up, the original lead was right, but everything that followed was wrong—not a sin- gle lead or play right after that. Air Battles of Stars. Continued from Seventh Page metropolitan life as the city folk knew of their hill lives. Rather odd, then, that of all the obtainable attractions they should have held out against one of the most amazingly popular attractions of the generation. But not more amusing than the “battle of the crooners” which has been going on in the back- ground for months. INTO the Vallee-Osborne controversy have been drawn black-robed jurists, who read tomes and listened to lengthy legal arguments. Competitive theater organizations have pitted one against the other. If one playhouse secured the services of Vallee, for instance, a competitor wacross the street sought to headline Osborne. In the background were the millions of rival radio stations. And meanwhile, a most partisan disagree- ment over the seemingly unimportant matter of “which one crooned first.” There have been some seven outstanding crooners—the two already mentioned and Don Parker, Carmen Lombardo, Earl Nelson, Smith Ballew and Bernie Cummins. There are those who will tell you that Lombardo was crooning at the tender age of 16, while appearing at a club performance in Ontario—and whether or not there is agreement on any other point, there is a fair .unanimity of opinion on the claim thas Lombardo’s band was perhaps the first to use the dreamy tempo common to all crooners. And while there has been some informal off- stage debates one way or another on the Vallee- Osborne croon conte:t, the fireworks did not .actually start until Vallee's book appeared with a paragraph which stated, in reference to the success of his band: “Our sudden rise was the cue for other small and comparatively unknown broadcasting orchestra leaders who had been broadcasting for years, perhaps even before we went upon the air, to drop their own style and to study our presentation in the hopes of dis- covering just what it was which had won over radio audiences. In fact, several of these leaders were frank enough to write or visit me and ask to be shown just how we broadcast.” There were other paragraphs in which Will Osborne was mentioned by name which fairly “burned up” young Mr. Osborne. First he came out with a statement which went some- thing like this: “I happened to be listening to Vallee’s Orchestra the other night and it now gives me great pleasure to state that our first broadcast was from a cafe in New York three yvears before the gentleman in question was heard by me. At that time my orchestra was made up of the same personnel and instrumen- tation and my voice also was functioning in the same manner. I am by no means trying to in- sinuate that any one has appropriated an original idea of mine.” HORTLY afterward, Osborne began his in- teresting suit for something like $100,000 and the learned jurists blinked upon the bench as arguments flowed, finally tossing the entire matter out of court. Taking the statistics of this deeply serious crooning matter as variously presented, Os- borne fixes the date of his first fateful crooning broadcast as on or about January 1, 1927, and his champions up and remark that he was play- ing the slow tempo music long before Vallee was ever heard of. Whereas the beginnings of the eminently successful Mons. Vallee indicate that he played a radio program in London somewhere in the neighborhood of 1926 and, after leaving Yale, was heard on the air from a New York station early in 1928. Doubling back again, it seems that Osborne and a band had been playing in a Manhattan cafe as early as 1925 and the claim is that even then he was crooning. It was, amusingly enough, Rudy Vallee who gave Osborne a job filling in gaps at the Villa Vallee. At first Osborne did not broadcast, but Rudy went away on a trip and the manage- ment of the supper club put on the new leader with “slow tempo and crooning choruses.” The story went that when Rudy got back there was plenty trouble. Returning from the Pacific Coast, Vallee issued a statement to this effect: ‘““To any particular imitators who have, in their adoption of our style of radio broad- casting, taken our place during our absence, I want to express my sincere thanks.” Ouch! And then back came Osborne. And— s0 it has gone on. Nor is the row likely to be over for a time. The rival broadcast stations will fight to the last dreamy rhythm. (Copyright, 1930.) THINGS GO WRONG A Law a Week. A Pass Out of Turn.—If no bid has been made, a pass out of turn is void, the proper player declares and the offender may not bid, double or redouble until the first bid has been overbid or doubled. If a bid has been made, a pacs out of turn is void, the proper player de- clares and the offender may not bid or double until the declaration he passed is overbid or doubled. In either of these cases, if the player at the left of the offender declares before at- tention is called to the offense, the pass becomes regular, the auction proceeds and the ofiender may declare in turn. Al<o in either case, if it be the turn to declare of the player on the right of the offender, a declaration by the in- turn player made before his partner declares is regular and calls attention to the offense. (Next—A declaration after the auctiom is ended.) Contract Systems. Why is the business double more importsat in contract than in auction? Principally because it is used oftener. Many hands in contract are bid to a high point, whereas in auction the bid might be only one or two. In many such cases the opponents can defeat the higher declaration and would bave no chance to beat the lower one; hence more opportunities are afforded to increase the de- fensive side’s score by doubles in contract than in the older game. The business double also has an important strategic use in contract which is different from anything in auction. Sometimes in contract a keen player can tell from his opponents’ bidding and what he sees in his own hand that the other side is on its way to a high declaration which can be made successfully, perhaps a slam. In such cases a business double inserted at the peychological point may deter them from bid- ding as high as they should; may frighten them into believing they cannot make the high gon- tract. Naturally, there is no need for such declarations in auction, for the stronger side has no reason for reaching out to bid games and slams; its bect procedure is to keep the bidding as low as possible to allow a margin of safety. What is the best defense against a “Vander- bilt” one-club bid? And what is the best way to thwart that defense? Auction Problems. ‘The king of spades having been led at mo trump, how would you plan the play of the following hand? DUMMY. Spades, 6, 4; hearts, 9, 6, 5, 4, 3; diamonds, K, 8, 7; clubs, J, 2. DECLARER. Spades, A, J, 3; hearts, A, Q, 3; diamonds, A, J, 6: clubs, A, K, 5, 4. An honor lead against no trump, when no suits have been bid, shows possession of an “honor combination”—at least three of the six top cards of the suit, at least two of which are touching—in which case the lead is from the touching honors. In this case the king lead shows possession of the queen, and also either the 10 or 9 or both. 4 Having made that deduction, declarer counts his sure tricks, finding four in clubs, twe im+~ diamonds, one in hearts and one in spades— stnl eight. One more must be obtained somse- ow. The extra trick could be acquired in spades by means of what is called “the Bath coup,” if original leader will allow himself to submit to that strategem. This coup is nothing more or less than refusing to.play the ace from ace-jack when the original leader has led the king. It forces the latter to shift from his long suit un- less he wishes to give declarer two tricks in it. In case he succumbs to the temptation and leads again, declarer has his contract surely,’ If, however, he does the usually correct thing in his situation and shifts to some other sulty he is subject to guessing which suit to choose, If he selects either hearts or diamonds to lead, declarer picks up the extra trick needed and his game is sure. Thus, playing low on the first trick makes it more than 2 to 1 that the adversary will help declarer make his game. Of course, if f, leader shifts to clubs, the declarer still has a job to 'do. He then should seek to get the trick in hearts, first by means of the finesse and sec- ond, if that fails, by seeking to establish a “long heart.” The safety in this lies in the fact that, if the finesse loses, it will be lost to the origi- nal leader: if a trick were lost to the right-hand adversary the latter could lead a spade through declarer and thus limit him to one spade trick while removing the stopper. j Planned in this way, the declarer has a whole succession of game chances. - The New Problem. The 10 of spades having been led at no trump by a player whose partner has bid spades, how would you plan the play of the following hands? DUMMY. Spades, 9, 8; hearts, A, 7, 4; diamonds, A, K, J, 10, 3; clubs, 8, 5, 2. DECLARER. ” Spades, A, K; hearts, J, 10, 9, 6, 3; diamonds, 5, 2; clubs, A, 7, 6, 3. .