The San Francisco call., 1906-08-30
Copyright, 1906, by r. r. Foster.
No. ,.

YN learning bridge the player who
picks up the game by watching
others and by experimenting with 1t
himself usually pays entirely too lit
tie attention to the declarations. and
places too high an estimate on the i'm
portance of the play.
In looking over the cards in the hand
OF another there seems to be no rhyme
or reason In many of his selections,
and to the uninitiated they appear to
be matters of caprice rather than of
system. unless the declaration is made
on an obviously long and strong suit
of trumps.
What the beginner needs Is some
standard by which hands may be meas
ured and the makes of others criticised.
He wants some simple general prin-
cfples to guide his early footsteps in
the right way for sound declarations.
without being bothered with too many
rules at once or lot OF exceptions
and butts"
The first thing he should impress
upon his mind is that the chief object
in declaring is to make the tricks
worth enough to win the game on the
hand, If possible. When the dealer has
nothing scored there are only three
makes with which it is possible to go
game-no trumps. hearts and dia.
which are likely to win the game-no
trumps and hearts-the difficulty OF
making eleven tricks out of the thir-
teen with diamonds for trumps being
obvious.
No-trumpers present the greatest
number OF opportunities for winning
the game from zero. and every bridge
player should first examine his hand
for the possibility of q no-trump decla-
ration.
In spite OF the amount OF practice
that most people have at the game.
comparatively few bridge players know
no-trumper when they see it, One
has to be educated up to calling no
trumps on hands which are only
trifie above the average in strength,
and the first step in this education is
to learn what average strength is.
An average hand can be demon
strated to be one that contains one
ace. one king. one queen, one jack. one
ten. and so on, down to the deuce. the
cards being in various suits. If each
of the four players at the table holds
such a hand, they must obviously be
equal, as the suits have no rank at
no trump.
But as the cards are never so equally
distributed in actual play. we must
find some equivalent values for the
high ones, SO that if one player holds
two aces but no king, and another
two kings but no ace. we may be able
] to estimate the comparative value of
/ the two hands.
There are several ways of doing this,
all OF which will be. explained in these
articles as we proceed but the simplest
| seems to be to take the trick takin e
value Of the high cards as a standard
AT no trumps, an ace is certainly
! good for a trick, and no matter how
/ the adversaries play the suit, nothing
| can prevent you from taking one trick
| in ii IL you want to. The combination
| of king and queen of the same suit
is equally certain to take at least one
| trick. no matter how the adversaries
manage the suit, and the same is OBJ
| viously true of the combination of
| queen, jack and ten in any suit. For
all practical purposes these three COM
| binations-A. or x, @, or Q, J, 10
are equal in their power to take at
| least one trick in the suit, no matter
! how that suit is played
! If you will look these three comb bina-
| tons over as they stand together, you