Evening Star Newspaper, November 1, 1931, Page 97

The Big Hand OfF all intriguing things in bridge, The one with greatest lure Is king up a hand so sirong That game or slam is sure 1f only I could hold ihat hand ust once a week or so I'd never have to worry much How other hands might go. I'd treasure it with all mny heart Caress and stroke and pet it. But all my hopes and prayers are vain,; 1 almost never get it! ROM the beginning of contract bridge bidding systems have bzen instruments calculated to help two pariners make the final bid which best suits the 26 cards of their two hands. In general, they would not care about the earlier bids if they could be sure the ultimate one is right. The joker in this is that the earlier bids have a telling effect in determining the last one. If two partners could sec each other’s hands, they could know infallibly what contract they would prefer. This being taboo, all they can do is converse about their hands by telling & number of facts with each bil, until eventually they make what seems the best selection, both as to declarations and the hsight of the bid. In that bidding conversation they are re- stricted to a remarkably small vocabulary, con- sisting of only 15 words. They can use the numbers from one up to seven, the names of four suits and no trumps, or a pass, double or redouble, And the longest sentence ever allowed consist of only two or three words, a number and a declaration, Yet, with that tiny language they try to cover millions of diferent kinds of situations, to tell an utterly unlimited number of things to each other. With their limited equipment it is impos- sible to tell the partner everything there is to tell. A choice must be made between those things most important to tell and those not so important. The wise player prefers to use his language in such a way that he covers most adequately the facts which will mean the most points to his side and slight those which mean the least points. If the opponent reverses this idea and- converses about less irportant facts while neglecting the more important ones, the result is a foregone conclusion, in the long run. When contract was young, keen players were quick to see the importance of having some way to show a hand of great general strength, par- ticularly one with which the best final declara- tion for the side was in doubt, depending on the way partner’s hand might fit. Such hands, for instance, the following: A PKQJ5 B 4KJ10 WAKQJ ¢KQJ842 & None AAKQ2 GAKJI0 &8 The Pioneer “Forcers™ Harold S. Vanderbilt, who as far as Lontract is concerned is the inventor of “forcing” bids which compel the partner to respond, was the first one to devise a special procedure for such hands, his artificial one-club bid to show gen= eral strength including at lcast three high-card tricks. From that point on the history of the development of contract systems is almost en=- tirely the evolution of the mse ds of treating such hands. Mrs. Madeline Kerwin was wil :t question the first person to advise publicly the use of the suit bids of two to show hands of general elastic strength. From her advocacy developed the so-called Cavendish Club system. About simultaneously, players at the Knickbocker Whist Club in New York, began using suit two= bids in almost the same manner, both they and the Cavendish players eventually making them absolute compellers of a response from partner so that the ideal fit might be ascer- tained. George Reith, chairman of the Card Committee, Philip Hal Sims, Sidney S. Lensz, E. V. Shepard. George Kling and other exe perts contributed to this evolution until eventu- ally Mr. Lenz wrote his book explaining the “demand bid.” Ely Culbertson returned to New York from California when this process was almost com- pleted. At first he heartily disapproved of re= stricting a two bid to those unusual occasions when a player held a hand strong enough to compel partners to bid on nothing. Dozens of Knickerbocker players recall his announcement at the different tables that “I do not use the forcing two bid.” Later he was swung to the idea, in fact, more than swung to it, for he limited the use of the bid still further by em- ploying it only when a specific amount of high- card strength was held. He is still a stanch advocate of it and of the same high-card theory he expounded almost three years ago. During those years Mrs. Kerwin, Mr. Lens and other early sponsors of the bid, after ex- tensive trial, have changed their opinion of it and frankly abandoned it, not because it did not serve its purpose well when the right hand for it arrived, but because the right hand did wot arrive often enough. They did not get enough chances to use the bid. A hand with he great general strength required by most sers of the forcing system is dealt about once In 100 deals, to a partnership once in 200 deals, 0 an individual once in 400 deals. A number of other experts, including Milton Work and the late Witbur C. Whitehead, Te never converted to using all of their twe ds to show such mighty hands. They argued t this was a profligate waste of four of the fht low-suit bids a player is allowed to make he bids of one and the bids of two—the only s which are low enough to give room for jerchange of information between partmers. y considered that with all of the two bids pd that way, the one bids had to cover too th ground; when a player bid one, his couldn’t tell whether he had a mini- THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, NOVEMBER 1, 1931 & 7uE BripGE FFORUM To Inform the Partner or Fool the Foc --That Is the Question—History of “Forcing”™ in Contract. BY SHEPARD BARCLAY mum hand or one which was almost of game strength. The partner was afraid to pass with just a little strength, because a game might thus be lost, and he was afraid to respond with just a little because the original bid might be minimum and the side might therefore take a heavy loss if he did anything but pass. Some players have contended that this is an Five Ways to Prevent Crime in U.S. Continued jrom Third Page place, it is not an effective method of punish- ment. We have about 12,000 homicides in the United States annually and about a hundred legal killings, which, after all, is the correct name for capital punishment. This makes about 1 time in 80 when capital punishment functions, which can hardly be called an efficient method. “But my greatest objection is that it is not & deterrent. If I could be convinced it really was I would favor it. Fear of the death pen- alty is not a deterrent to murder. I will give you an illustration. We are executing, in a day or two, a man for the murder of Joseph Klue, a fellow convict here in Sing Sing. The mur- derer has walked past the death house seven or eight times a day since his term here. He has seen the coffins go out. He has wit- nessed the harrowing scenes when relatives come for the body of the executed man. And vet he murdered Klue within 10 feet of the death house, within sound of the whir of its very motors. If the actual presence of the instrument of death itself was no deterrent to him, how can only the idea of it be to others who never come into such close contact with it? “And then to clinch the thought that fear is not a deterrent, hardly had the sentence of death been passed upcn the slayer when there were two more murders here—a thing which had never happened once before during the 12 years I have been warden. “And then capital punishment brutalizes the other prisoners. You can see the effect upon them after an execution in loss of morale; which, after all, is absolutely essential to any institution and doubly necessary here.” EWIS E. LAWES is not an amateur. He is not a political favorite. He has come up from the ranks, beginning his career as a keeper in Clinton Prison, Dannemora, in 1905. He was the first to introduce movies in a prison and also the first warden to install gas guns. It is amusing to him that so mnay people were able to comprehend him doing one or the other, but absolutely unable to understand the same warden doing both. No. 25 said to me: “You can't fool the warden. He is one of us and knows when we're putting one over on him.” Lawes knows human nature, too. He understands the seething mass of humanity from which the convicts are in a great measure recruited. He has the eye to see their viewpoint and their distress, and, above proach,” he said. “If you are looking for bad ones, you will always find them, for very few humans are wholly good. On the other hand, if you want to find good, you'll find it in a large measure. In choosing bad from good, or good from bad, lies the secret of dealing with human nature. I have always tried to main- tain a middle course. A man cannot be made over by magic, but if you'll find the things that interest him he will respond much more rapidly to the effort te bring him back to useful citizenship.” (Copyright, 1931.) Texas Farms Hit by Erosion © much has been said and written on the subject of soil erosion that the menace of this factor to the soil fertility of the country is met with indifference. Some figures gath- ered in Texas, however, are sufficiently start- ling to center attention on the problem. Federal experts carrying on studies af the problem report that in one rain of a few days’ duration more than 100 million tons of fertile top soil were washed out of the fields of the Black Belt. The affected land was not unduly steep, being little more than a gentle slope. One single rain in one morning swept away 23 tons per acre of rich black soil and at leas¢ 3,000,000 acres were affected. The seriousness of the situation is to be seen in the fact that the eroded soil is permanently lost and the average depth of top soil in this country is about 9 inches. The destruction of forests has brought the soil erosion question to the fore, for few, comparatively, have made any effort either through the planting of belts of trees or the construction of terraces to over- come the destructive wash of accumulated waters down slopes during rainstorms. Some Annuals Winter Ouver HE climate and usual ground conditions in this locality seem to set at odds a number of the axioms of the flower grower. For one thing, at this season of the year, it is advised advantage, since it keeps the opponents in the dark when a one bid is made, luring them imto making dangerous bids, because they do not know whether a strong or a weak hand is held against them. The question {here is whether it is best to keep opponents in ignorance of your holding at the expense of also making the guess and take a chance one way or other. . When the members of the Advisory Counci} building the mew “Official System” of bidding got together the very first thing they decided to recommend was that a partner must know from the first bid whether a very moderate hand or a strong hand is held, so that he wouki not be obliged to guess at what strength he needed to respond to it. Such a bid was then adopted, agreeing with the opinions of both those who had pioneéred with the original demand two-bid and those who had never used * it. That bid will be described in detail mext week. A Forbidden Play . J. M. Campbell tells about & no-trump des clarer who threw his last three cards on the table, saying “You can have the rest,” where< upon the cpponents threw theirs face wup; Dummy promptly said: “I object; the club i§ good.” If he had merely objected he could have compelled declarer to play out the hand in any way the latter saw fit, but when he mentioned the club, declarer could be barred from leading it under law 30 (a) (2), which says dummy may not “Suggest a lead or play by touching or naming a card, or otherwise, Penalty: Either adversery may direct that de- clarer make such lcad or play such card (if legal) or refrain from doing so.” A Law a Week What occurs if after a redouble omne of $hé opponenis of the redoubler showid double or redouble? The double or redouble is void, and either opponent of the offender may demand a new deal or add 200 points to the honor score of his side. What occurs if South bid ome spade, West gy doubled, North passed and Easi redoubled? Problems of Play On the following hand South bid his dia= monds, West spades, North hearts, South three no trumps as a risky psychic to prevent a spadé lead, East four spades, intending to sacrifice, and South five diamonds. West, thinking South has the ace-queen of spades .and his partner four or five little ones, does not wish to lead up to the temace, so chooses the 10 of clubs ine stead. North covers with the jack, then East with the king, hoping he can win it and return his partner’s spade, but South overtakes with the ace. How would you now play the rest of the hand? P T YEQJ4 * Q54 HIBT4 AKS8532 VA6 ¢ 108 #Q109 H964 v ®AKJ9T62 ' A3 . Charles 8. Lochridge, partner of George Reith, is the man who practically “stole a game” on this hand with his combination of bidding brilliancy and sound play, giving him a top score on the hand. . After winning the first trick with the club- ace, he realized that success depended upon his getting rid of the losing spades in one hand. or the other. There was no suit in the South hand which could be used for discards of North's spades, so it was necessary to discard South’s spades on something in North’s hand. Dummy had the hearts ready for that purpose, S0 Mr. Lochridge went to work on them by leading the ten. West took this, setting up the suit, then led his queen and nine of clubs. The latter was ruffed. The ace and king of diamonds now dropped the outstanding trumps and a small trump to the queen enabled Mr. Lochridge to play dummy’s three hearts for discards of the three losing spades from his own hand. ‘The rest of the tricks were, of course, trumps, A New Problem How would you bid and play the following hand, South being the dealer, with both sides vulnerable? a64 91072 @ A5 HAQIS3 NORTH &QJI1095 YKE3 ¢J3 »854