Evening Star Newspaper, December 13, 1931, Page 101

Rickety table so shaky and frail, Looking as if you'd been hit by a gale; Even when new you were shabby and cheap, Now you are ready to fall in a heap; Frazzled and worn, just a picture of woe, Down in disgrace to the junk man you go. Somehow I feel that it isn't quite fair, Treating you mean when we give you the air; Often I'll think how we all played the game, Using a linen to cover your shame— Fond recollections that never can die; Rickety table, we bid you good-by. track of the number of cards of each suit played from start to finish of each deal? Is there some definite routine which one’s mind goes thrcugh in remembering clubs, diamonds, hearts and spades in this order, or must one trust more or less haphazardly to his memory, with no ordered sequence of suits?” Some memory students advise remembering the ‘dead” cards already played. Others counael keeping track of the remaining “live” cards not yet played. There are two better ways. One is to take exact note of the four cards played on the first trick and at the end of the hand remind yourself what they were. After a bit of practice at that, try it for the first two tricks, then later extend it to three and finally to an entire hand. A great many fine players get along without exerting themselves along those lines. 'They concentrate more on establishing in their minds the “suit patterns” of the four hands and reconstructing them mentally at critical stages, referring from the “depleted pattern” back to the “original pattern.” The late Wilbur C. Whitehead once gave a very fine example of how this is done. He used the following hands as illustrations: DUMMY VAK3 ¢9872 DECLARER @KI05 9wQ964 AU HAKQES l/ Y what mental process do you keep BAJT 410953 Against a no trump contract, West led the three of diamonds, North played the deuce, East the king and South the ace. Consider- ing the three a fourth best and seeing the deuce in dummy, West is counted for four diamonds; they are headed by the queen, for if East had the queen he would not have played the king. Next came two club tricks, on the second of which East discarded a diamond, showing he had just one club and West four, headed by the jack; to continue clubs meant to establish that jack. Now came three heart tricks, the last being a finesse of the nine, on the third of which West discarded a spade, showing he had only two hearts; therefore held three spades, for eight cards are already placed in the red suits. By subtraction, East held one club and four cards of each other suit. As a next deduction, West probably did not have the spade queen, or he would not have wasted one of his gu to it. Whern another heart, the queen, was led, West's discard of a second spade made three spade tricks sure, By referring to the original hand patterns and eliminating one round of dian is, two of clubs, four of hearts, two spade discards by West and one diamond by East, the depleted patterns are reconstructed, as follows: AAJT ¥ None ¢9 &109 AK108 ¥ None ®J &Q6 The spade ace must drop West’s last one, the finesse of the ten must succeed, then the king will win, leaving West three cards. If he hasn’t unguarded his club jack, he will have those two clubs and his diamond queen. The dia- mon® jack can be led into his queen and he must then lead a club, giving declarer a small slam. 44 1,(172' a ”'YFC[‘ North bid two spades, South three hearts, North three diamonds, West commented: “In- sufficient bid; the bid is four diamonds, and South cannot bid again.” Was he correct? West then added: “And since, of course, neither my partner nor I will bid, North must play this at Jour diamonds.” Is there a penalty for that statement? West was not correct when he said the final bid was four diamonds. North had the priv=- ilege of making his bid sufficient in any suit or no trump, bidding as high as he might wish, so long as it was an overbid of the three hearts. He was right to the extent that the partner of the offender was barred from any further bidding. As to his second statement about neither himself nor his partner bidding, that can be construed as giving information about his hand to his partner. The only pen- alty for that is that his partner is barred from any further participation in the contracting, which as it happens is probably in effect no penalty at all in this case. If a player bids two spades at contract, tukes €ight tricks and gets two extra tricks by virlue WSTE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C., DECEMBER 13, 1931. ® /4HE BRIDGE FORUM There Are Several Ways to Remember the Cards Played and Those Not Yet Played, and Here Are Hints to Make Your Game Better. BY SHEPARD of an adversary’s revoke, can he score a game from a love score? If he bids two spades, is doubled, fails by two tricks to make his con- tract, but gets two tricks by means of an ad- versary's revoké, thus making the contract for him, can he score game from a love scorc? The “O ffz'('z}'zl Sv.\‘/em o Probably the most important “strictly con- tract type of bid” in any system is the bid of one more than necessary in an as yet unnamed suit, after the partner has made an original bid. AN of these are examples of game-demand BARCLAY take-outs, as those bid are called in the new system: Original Intervening Opener’s Bidder Opponent Partner 1 Pass 2y 19 Pass L X 1e 1 24 1NoTrump Pass 3 14 1 No Trump iy It will be noted that in each case a new suit has been called, exactly one more than neces- sary to be legal. A bid of two more than neces- U. §. Aids Meat Production Cost Cut 'HE wundversally maligned middleman has been blemed so much for the spread in costs be- tween the producer and the consumer that too little thought has been given to the other links in the chain between the farm and the table. In the case of meat, much of the high cost can be found to be due to the practices of the H. appiness Rules Continued from Thirteenth Page will not be so feminine, in the sense of being irritable and full of nerves. But otherwise, very feminine—the mother of the race. For the type born to be a mother will never be happy in any other life. She will support the race, leaving the career type free to develop in out- side work. “TH‘I fact that home life is breeking wp is nof, as many say, traceable to wives work- Ing away from home,” was his next comment. “It is more an economic move. Both men and women no longer wish to support large houses and staffs of servants. Times are too hard. Every one here lives in flats, which, I suppose, correspond to your apartments.” Mir. Burke has never visited America. “Mainly for this same reason,” he continued, “families have dwindled, so that the average household no longer has six or eight children, but shout two. Easy divorce in nearly all the States is another fact of the decay of home life, “But the seat of unhappiness, even in mar- ried life, is the people trying to dash into para- dise,” he refterated reflectively, “when there is no pearadise at all, except what is in them- selves. 8o many set themselves to discover the purpose of life. This old tree I have been sit- ting before all these years” (he went to the window and drew aside the yellow silk drapery, letting in a view of a verdant, leafy treetop) “keeps on bringing out more green leaves every Spring. Each Fall it goes into decay, then it biooms again. I don't suppose human life has any more purpose than that.” He let the curtain fall and continued gazing out at the neat Bloombury Garden, for which each resi- dent of Tavistock Square proudly boasts a key. “Life,” he continued, in the same lyric strain, “Is worth living—whatever it is.” “Even to those whom love and wealth have passed by?” I mused. He nodded. ‘“Life is composed of so many more elements than love and material things. You can never take out of it anything at the end except the fragrance of the flower of life-- of bawing Wved.” tOopyright, 1931.) so-called feeder farms which stand between the range and the stockyard. The Fall sees the speeding up of the ship- ment of cattle and calves to stockyards, but all the stock shipped does not reach the yards, for at least 20 per cent of the animals are found to be too thin for favorable prices and too shy on fat to make the attractive cuts that the housewife desires when she goes to market. This fact has brought about a flourishing business— that of livestock feeder. With harvesting out of the way and the work in the various other farm activities re=- duced to Winter maintenance, many stockmen and farmers find themselves with considerable quantities of hay, wheat, corn, rye, corn stover and other feeds on hand. They may find that it would be more profitable to send this feed to market in the form of meat than as grain. Many of them may be general farmers who like stock feeding in Winter as a sideline for cash return when their other activities are at a low ebb. The latter class may feed from one to five or six carloads of stock which have reached market time in a condition not suitable for im- mediate slaughter. They often find in their fields corn stubble or late grass which is suit- able for grazing and they like to turn this waste into cash. The feeders usually look to the great ranges of the West and Southwest for their stock and the great distance and the shipping problems bring about generally unsatisfactory conditions, resulting in highly expensive practices greatly increasing the ultimate cost of the meat. One of the chief problems confronting the feeder, according to the Department of Agri- culture, is to get just the age, weight and grade of cattle which he wants. The usual practice is for a number of feeders to pool their inter- ests and send a buyer to the ranges to pur- chase just the type of animal desired. 'This, however, does not always work out as desired because of a difference in interpretation of terms and so on. To overcome this difficulty some of the feeders go to the ranges themselves in order to do their own selecting. This, of course, takes considerable time and money, with the result that costs go up. Many not desiring to join a pool nor yet to 80 personally to the ranges buy at a public market, with results none too satisfactory. Seize Embalmed Cream THE eagle-eyed imspectors of the Federal Food and Drug Administration, ever om the watch for adulterated and misbranded foods, reached out to confiscate 143 gallons of cream produced in Georgia and “‘embalmed” for ship- ment into Florida, The cream was really embalmed, for # had been treated wish formaldehyde to preserve it. sary, such as three spades over partner's origi- nal one diamond, would be more or less of a weakness bid with most advanced players, indi- cating a hand useless except at spades and en- deavoring to shut out a bid from the next op- ponent. If the bid of one more than necessary is in no trump, such as two no trump over part- ner’'s original one heart, it is not a game-de= mand take out. The new system is in line with older ones in the way this bid operates, except that it pre- sents the matter in more exact form. In all systems a game-demand take-out shows at least a certain amount of high-card strength as well as a bidable suit in the suit called. With the tables provided by the new system, which count as high as three tricks in a single suit, a total of three and a half high-card tricks is required as a minimum for the gamee- demand take-out. ‘ Regardless of what valuation method is used, the message conveyed is that the side holds enough high-card strength to make game vire tually certain at some declaration; the oppo= nents cannot take more than about three tricks with the high cards in their possession; such being the case, the side should be able to find some declaration fitting the two hands well enough so that the opponents probably can take only their few high-card tricks. After a game-demand take-out, the prefer= ential order of responses in the new system is as follows: 1. Name a new biddable suit if possible. 2. Rebid a strong major of five or more cards, 3. Raise a major suit take-out with adequate support; with neutral support if no other ree sponse is possible. 4. Rebid a strong minor of five or more cards. 5. Support a minor with adequate support; neutral if nothing else possible. 6. If unable to comply with any of the above, bid a minimum number of no trumps. : The main idea is that the response is never & pass. In fact, both must keep going on until at least game is reached, sometimes still farthey to slam. P/'Oblf’)flj‘ How would you bid and play the following hand, West being the dealer with North and South Vulnerable? Fa AK5 YA9733 e A0 ®AKQS *97 NORTH VEKQJ106 $KQJb 102 * SOUTH AAQJI1084 ¥ None ¢ 732 HJI654 When this hand was played in a rubber game in Washington recently, West started with & heart and set the stage for some brilliant bide ding in the North by A. Philip Stockvis, a truly talented player. He at once called two hearts, to show a biddable heart suit in a good hand— the modern way of guarding against psychi¢ bids of void suits by the opponents. After East’s pass South called two spades, West three diamonds, Mr. Stockvis four clubs, East pass, South four spades. After West passed again Mr. Stockvis bid five no trump to signal slang likelihood and first-round control of the oppoe nents’ two suits. South took it to six clubs and Mr. Stockvis now surprised with his 93,50 six spades, having enough support for a rebid suit. Certain, by inference, from West’s bide ding of the two red suits, that the latter couldn’§ possibly have the spade king and that, theres fore, his partner had it, South went to seven spades. The hand was pretty to play, after the king of hearts lead. The ace took it, South discarde ing a diamend. Next trumps were led twice, then came an effort to “ruff up” the fifth hearty if it happened that West had only four. Afteg each heart lead to closed hand’s trumps, a clul was used for a re-entry into dummy. When this failed the jack of clubs was played and then South’s last trump. At that juncture Wes§ was squeezed. He had left the queen of hcar®® and the king-queen of diamonds, dummy holde ing the heart nine and the diamond ace-ten, Whatever West discarded, dummy would dise card from the other suit and thus be sure of the last two tricks, when South led a diamond to the ace. That made it a pretty deep squeeze, to a nine and ten spot. The New Problem How would you bid and play the following hand, North and South being vulnerable and East having opened as dealer with a “psychic” bid of one spade? eKQs YQJIse ®A100 »JI86 J4 'Y ] [ Aixovn vo6s 2Q $8743 ] HAKQ108