The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, February 8, 1903, Page 13

THE SUNDAY CALL. down the Now," sald the monkey to himself, “Is hounds were ready for & run ke was ;" and he stealthily ready, too, and rode in high state back to bad reached ly som: kind ning all when his the o Pl tree the Rancho del Paso, where he was right ' >, i royally recelved and petted on account of his wisdom. So he became a prime favorite and was allowed all the privileges of the ranch. The owls made a nest of straw and leaves and a little later six baby owls came to stay with them. Baby owls, but such queer looking creatures had never been seen before. They were about four times the size of ordinary owls and three of them had faces for all the world lixe monkeys. Not only faces, but a beautiful set of teeth. Fancy owls with teeth. One queer little one resembled nothing BASY WHIST NE of the most frequent sources of loss at the whist table is the attempt to get too much out of the cards. Nor is such striving to perform Impossibilities by any means confined to the moderate player. | Those who are well versed in the theory of the game and are fairly expert in. its practices often fail to recognize the fac that in the majority of hands the onl thing to do is to take the tricks that com: raturally their way and let the other fellows have those to which they are just as clearly entitled. These players are forever striving to bring off some bril- liant coup that is not in the cards. They never seem to remember a few plain facts, viz.: that there are only thirteen cards in a and thirteen tricks to be taken In a deal; that it is useless to at- tempt to bring in a suit against a pre- ponderance of adverse trump strength: that a finesse which can win but one trick, while it may lose two or three, should never be taken; that false card- ing is & two-edged weapon; that a cre ruff may be carried beyond the point of safety when one's adversary is enabled to take discards in an unopened suit; that winners in opponent's suit may be hus- banded too long; and a host.of other things, among them the fact that the op- portunity for any kind of a coup does not occur oftener than once In a hundred _made by experts. LESSONS FOR AMATEURS BY MRS. E. P. SCHELL. - - deals. The remarks of L. M. Bouve are well worth quoting: “It would prove highly encouraging to conscientious stu- dents of sound whist If it were possible for them to witness many of the plays Not content with dem- onstrating thelr abllity to read the cards and outgeneral their opponents, long chances are taken and many tricks lost by an apparent overmastering desire on the part of extremely skillful players to make phenomenal gains. Case after case might be cited from national trophy con- tests down to the most Informal games, where the defeats sustained couid be rightfully attributed to plays of this nature. “On the other hand, players of less ex- perience, who make no pretense to rivairy with these experts, enter club contests and carry oft the evening's honors by playing careful, conservative whist. One great advantage of duplicate whist is that it enables players to study cause and ef- fect and emphasize the value of careful play. Many of the complaints of lack of success one hears expressed after an evening’s game are due to plays which the players frankly acknowledge were un- sound. 1f mental memoranda were made of these occurrences and borne in mind on future occasions a repetition of similar losses might be prevented. “An important principle of the game fre- | quently lost sight of is that which ree nizes the folly of risking the loss of se eral tricks where the chance is slight of gaining more than one trick. One of the most common situations illustrating this point is that which presents the choice of forcing opponents on continuing trumps. Probably no one play is responsible for a greater number of variations of three or four tricks to a deal than Is the hastily conceived idea that it is advisable to attempt to take every remaining trick. “The one trick which might be lost by conservative play becomes a mountain in the mind's eye, It is not surprising that opponents frequentiy take several tricks when the possibility of so doing seems, in- deed, a molehtll to them." A deal where three tricks are lost by one of those incomprehensible errors which the very best players occasionaily make: Wi Eas 8-A,J.10,8 6,2 8-Q.9. 7, ¢ —5. —6, 3. C—A, Q, 6. C—J, 4, 2 D-19, 4, 3. 4 KQ o > i i two, % 13 BY Hopfon. quite a3 much as a pig. and those who know say he quickly developed a fashion of grunting when he was well pleased. The people on the ranch were astound- ed. The neighbors were curious, while the fanc'ers who came to see horses remained to lock at the oddities. As the children grew they displayed Queor traits. The monkey-faced ones would sit and sway for hours, occasion- ally jumpirg down to run dack and forth Yehind the bars as any animal In cap- tivity always does. One night the door was left open and the owls escaped. The boys searched diligently for them, as they were valu- able, and negotiations were being with & museum, but to all t purpo they had completely but even to her untralned ear it had an unnatural note. To make a W rious Is to rouse every whit determ de vanished from the face of the earth. owls seemed Some five months later Miss Clark went liberty was at to visit ber uncle. To e ack with like ver and wings, of them hadn’t been problem was harder e of ney and get the captiv w a a breath t eres lark refuses to are mot 114 appear are Tk. N | L = - $ 1 A s = | 7 5 & A e “Ioms FaKED \| amuse herself she :ode through the coun | try, covering miles and thoroughly enjoy | ing her outdoor life. | As she rode through a grove one night she heard the mournful voice of the owls. Ace of clubs trumps. North leads. TABLE NO. 1 Tk. N. 8. 1. *h 7h 2. 10h Qh 3 38 53 4 *Ks 2d 2 lie 6d d 5d Kh Ah Sc 4h s *Je Sc Js East and West 8, North and South 5. Trick .1. The lead of jack announces trump strength according to East's sys- tem of trump-showing lead. Trick 5. North’s trump lead is a purely defensive measure. It is decidedly risky in face of an adverse established sult, with entire absence of re-entry cards, and indieations of strength upon the other side of the table. The trump opening