Evening Star Newspaper, March 29, 1931, Page 94

THF SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, MARCH 29, 1931. ® [HE BRrRIDGE [FORUM Blessed is the bridger who can laugh ot himself, for he shall beat others to it! - SN'T it much more fun to admit a ludicrous mistake, and start the others laughing with you, than to / try to explain your lapse and have b them all gufiawing, with yoursslf as the butt of the joke? The most experienced " players g-nerzlly have developed that hebit and thercby turn otherwise painful occasions into ones with a certain measure of enjoy- ment. For some p-culi:r reason, irnferior players hate to admit a mistake, or else try to plead & sensible reason for making one. Truly skill- ful ones mzke just as bad slips as anybody else, excert that they don’t do it as frequently. When they do, however, they consider that their prestig: is best protected by the frank admission that they slipped. Sev:sral good players were engaged in play- ing a no tiump hond, in which these cards of the diamond suit were held by dummy and declarer: DECLARER Al1093 DUMMY QJ87642 . The dummy's only high side card was a singleton ace, which had just been used up on the ovrening lead. Declarer, noting that he had plenty of cards of the diamond suit, promp:ly led the queen, played the three from his hand, and th2 queen won. He now led the jack, which Eo2st covered with the king. Imagine th- declarer's anguish upon discover- ing that "is suit was blocked and that he had wasted (l:-ee perfectly good tricks because he had taken the suit for granted and lazily had failed to examin=® its make-up. What was there %0 do but laugh at once, before the others oould start the ribaldry? Another time the declarer held these cards #f a trur-n snit in his hand and dummy: DUMMY DECLARER 95432 AQJuos The lead wis in the dummy for the last $ime, there being no re-cntries. Declarer, of course, led the nine from dummy and put his #x on it letting it win, since West couldn't follow suit. It was now sure that East's king was trapped. What did declarer do next but oarelessly lead the ace from his own hand— out of turn? His partner, the dummy, had no right to point out his mistake, and the ad- versaries were not kind enough to, but they d@id join in his laugh. Here's another in the same class. The de- dlarer had just led a small card from dummy, and played the ace on it. Fourth hand put the king on the ace and then started to lead 9 the next trick, when his paritner properly warned him. “Why, that was my king,” he “Yes,” answered his partner, “but it was declarer’s ace.” “Goshamighty,” he exclaimed, “I thought it was the deuce,” and then launched the laugh that everybody enjoyed. Omne cof the greatest of tournament players had boasted once that he never made a re- voke in his life in championship play. That very aitercoon he perpetrated two of them, and hippily announced that the dinner was “on him"—and a gleeful time it was, with him as the cheer leader. If you know any player who insists that he mever makes such slips, either tell him to wait for the millennium to find suitable play- mates or nominate him for membership in the Ananizs Club. N et Contract Systems . If West opened the bidding with a natural bid of one club, how should North and South bid th~ following hands, granting that oppo- nents thereafter pass? NORTH S AQINV49YI53 ¢AKJIE 52 SOUTH OKB5 9642 753 $£9643 Scme players would be inclined to double with 8 hand like North’s, in order to show its high card strength. Others refuse to double with a two-suiter, reserving that declaration for either one-suiters with strength on the side so that the single suit can be bid if partner responds with & weak suit, or for three-suiters prepared to support any of three responses or to call no trump if the fourth suit is bid. The danger of doubling with a two-suiter like this is that partner's response may be hearts; the origiral bidder then showing one of his suits has to await a third chance to bid before he show his second suit, by which time the ding may be too high. Consequently, many advanced players prefer %0 show cne of their two suits with their first call, so that partner need keep it open only once to hear the rest of the story. Some of them use a “forcing overcall” of gne more than mecessary to show immediately the fact that two suits are held and encourage partner to keep it open with very little strength, Such an over- call can be made, however, only when the hana has considerable strength; lacking enough, just # minimum overcall is made, Wh'n there is doubt about the hand having “@ny margin of extra strength, some of these players make a fine distinction with these “forc- ing overcalls,” bidding the higher-ranking suit first if the suits are imemdiately adjacent, such as spades-hearts, hearts-diamonds or diamonds- clubs, but the lower ranking first if the suits are non-adjacent, such as spades-diamonds, spades- clubs or hearts-clubs. The reason is simple. If Swo spades are called, partner responding with three heorts, four diamonds would be much too Weh Lo shw the second guit. If, however, two diamonc's are called, partner responding with two hearts, only two spades need be bid to show that suit Wih the hand -given, there is barely enough Laughing at His Own Mistakes Is Usually the Mark of a Capable Player—New Rules and Some Old Ones. distributional strength—length in the suits—to justify a forcing overcall, so that one spade would be the choice of most g-od players over the opponent’s original cne club. How would you bid and play the following hand, East being the dealer and neicher side vulnerabie? AAK 10 WA432 ®QJI9E Q2 NORTH In the draw for partners, seals and cards, if a player draws two cerds simultaneously, which cdunts—the higher, or lower, the average of them, or what? The law says: “Each player draws by lfting a card from the spread pack and showing its face. If s player shows more than one card * * * it is a misdraw by that player and he must draw again.” Thus, if a player draws two cards, but shows only the face of onme, perhaps because the two cards are more or less stuck together, the one whose face he shows is the one that counts. It is only when the face of more than one is shown that he draws again. What is the penalty if a player hesitates un- necessarily in his play, in order to create a wrong impression regarding his hand, perhaps trying to conceal from an opponent the fact that his card is a singleton of the led suit? By Shepard Barclay. Auction Problems How would you bid and play the following hand, North beirg the dealer? aAQ $wA52 ®AK10)2 M643 & 109652 $YVKJS8T ® 53 & 82 The great old auction champions, Comdr. Winfield Liggett, jr., in the North and Sidney 8. Lenz in the South, did some fancy things with this deal in a recent tournament game. Liggett's opening one diamond was passed by the East player of a rather overawed team, which gave Lenz a chanc? to make the somewhat venturesome bid of one heart. West passing, Liggeit rebid diamonds, Lenz called two spades and Liggett showed his preference between Lis partner’s suits with three hearts. At the other table, the East man of the Lenz- Liggett team, Philip Hal Sims, overcalled the original spade with two hearts. which changed the whole course of action. North and South thereafter passed, while George Reith in the West went to one no trump, Sims to two clubs, and there it rested, three clubs being made without great difficulty. Lenz, by neat play, earned threes hearts for his pair, so that his team was a heavy winner by scoring on both sides of the hand. West began by taking two club iricks, then led a diamond, hoping East could ruff it. He couldn’t but did trump the dummy’s second diamond. When he returned a spade, dummy cashed two spade tricks and offered a third diamond, which Fog Loses Terror for Ships Continued from Seventh Page and the indicating instrument to the sextant makes it cumbersome, but within a few months the inventor said he would have a more com- pact device perfected which would eliminate the necessity of correcting the compass and com- pensating for gyro-compass errors. The irunk on his present apparatus contains the batteries which furnish the current. The new instrument will draw its current from the * ship’s dynamo. The perfected mechanism will not only indi- cate the latitude, but will be combined with an azimuth ring which will locate the longitude. Thus, when the forthcoming improvements are added, the “all-weather sextant” will not only find the east and west point of the vessel, but also its north and south position. The ac- curate focus up and down and sidewise will give the true bearing of the ship when the readings are interpreted in the nautical tables. ¢ A T THE present time, and, of course, since the days that seamen were able to aban- don pure guesswork and use the first primitive instruments,” said Mr. Macneil, “the readings of the sun had to be supgiemented by various corrections. Not only must the navigators take inte acorunt cwrest drift and errors (in the compass, but also on large liners, .where the bridge is 75 feet above the water and the ship is constantly dipping from 5 to 20 feet into the sea, a correction must be made for this in order to obtain the closest approximation to the accurate position. . “And then, if a vessel must drive through several days of fog, the errors are cumulative. Twenty miles off the first day when the next leg of the course is plotted may mean an addi- tional error of 20 or 30 miles for the second day, and so on until the skies clear and the heavens give aid in determining correct positions “With the perfected, compact instrument which will be ready within a few months, as soon as I combine the separate devices which have been proved practical, the latitude and longitude will be determined simultaneously on the same instrument, thus relieving the officers of a variety of calculations which are now necessary.” Mr. Macneil's “all-weather sextant” is a de- velopment of the “fog eye” which was tested on Rosevelt Field and in Long Island harbors about six months ago. The “fog eye” gives accurate information to fogbound pilots concerning other ships, light houses, light ships, shoals, narrows and so forth, and it provides an automatic warning which can be seen and heard and will also indicate whether the ships close by are moving or stationary, ’ e e £ was ruffed and overruffed. When East now followed suit on a spade trick ruffed in dummy, Lenz could count the hands of his adversaries. He knew that originally both held three spades, diamonds were split one to East and five to West, and the clubs were four and four because otherwise they would have been bid; this left East five trumps and West one. With that reading, Lenz knew he could safely cross-ruff the hand. He ruffed the fourth diamond with ¢@ eight, trumpsd a fourth spade with the ace, the fifth diamond with his jack and laid down his king of trumps, con- ceding the adversaries the last trick. The New Problem How would you bid and play the following hand, West being dealer? A975 9975 OKT3 SAQT2 AAQ1043 e VYVKé ©10965 106 - SOUTH AKEG ¥vAQ1033 ®AQ2 AHKJI3 Civil Government Continued from Fifteenth Page reservoir supplying the town of Christiansted is to be reconstructed at & cost of whore than $15 000. Tae rehabilitation program, to cost $141,000, inciudes, in addition to the remodeling of the hoie!, a restoration of the bay oil development in St. John, development of homestéading, estabiishment of an industrial and agricultural school, reorganiation of an agricultural experi- ment station and reforesiation of the islands. The activities of the Bureau of Efficiency in its new role as a government maker have been many and complex, Mr. Brown points out. He and his associates in the task have amassed and digested a large body of information in regard to the islands which has been useful to Con- gress and which will be necessary in the draft- ing of an organie law for the islands and a tax system and to the ncw Governor in his work of reorganization. This information aiso is ex- pected to b2 helpful to commercial interests in studying the investment possibilities of the islands. The work of creating cut of raw material an eniirely new governmcnt for 22,000 people of the Virgin Islands is regarded as one of the mest inderesting developments in statecraft un- dertaken in the United States in the past dec- ade. Wrecked by Tornado. Continued from Seventeenth Page as it rose and fell on the waves, I remembered the old, old cry in the wilderness. How long, how long? At about 8 o'clock that evening the sea became so placid that I saw a chance of baling the dory thoroughly. It was a long and weary job, but it seemed to put a little heart into those miserable wretches—gave ti thing to think about besides thirst and death. In an hour the done—and we climbed aboard, one by one, very gingerly. Thinking it over, I reckon that would have been about 9 o'clock in the evening. Culion foundered in the tornado two nights before at 11:30. So we must have been in the water for wbout 40 hours. A small steamer passed us, but without a sign. We tried to shout. You never heard such weird noises—sort of hoarse, feeble croaks. I stood up and waved a bit of torn shirt. The steamer glided on—it looked very near—it just glided on and disappeared. I sat down and gritted my teeth. It was pretty awful, more lonesome than ever—when there was nothing left thinning trail of smoke on the hor this point my memory is rather . I saw dream-islands which we passed ocably—as though drawn fruit and casks of crystal-clear and theg beckoned us. And I saw loom up and draw near and nearer, never stopped. There were men on looked at us stonily. The officer on looked straight ahead, though I screamed screamed. In lucid moments we paddled foolishly until we collapsed and lay where we had fallen, too weak to move, One evening, dumb, half-blind and incred- ulous, we felt our little dory grind her keel in the sandy shore of Panay Island. We fell over- board into the shallow water and crawled up the beach. I fell on my face and lay still. I