The sun., 1918-08-18
HowBids at Auction Can
Be Made to Give the
Partner a Correct Idea
of the Possibilities of a
Hand
BY r. r. FOSTER.

| Tue general tendency IN mOdern DID
ding at auction seems to be toward the
perfection of detail. the classification Of
hands by the variation OF the bids so as
to differehtiate certain holdings from
others. Just as players do with their
| leads from combinations OF hiEh cards.
Since the days Of duplicate whist al
good players have adopted a system o:
stating the genus and species OF their
holdings by certain combinations Of high
card leads The most familiar example
Ia probably that Of the eleven hands
from which one would lead the king.
There are no less than seven different
ways Of leading from these eleven com.
oinations. all starting with the king.
With only two high cards, ace and
king. the ace follows the king and de-
MES the queen With ace king queen
the queen follows the king. the ace hav-
ing been indicated by the kings win
ming the trick. and SO on, through all
the possible combinations. from the Ave
top honors to the king queen and small
cards only.
The first-cardA led. the king, showed
member OF that group the leader held.
Much the same system has gradually
been adopted by good players in the
major suit bids at auction. The most
elementary bids are those that distir-
gVish between hands in which all the
tricks are in the one suit which the
player bids and hands in which there
are outside tricks
Principle of the Bids.
The principle OF these bids rests upon
the recognition OF the fact that " two
or three different bids can be made upon
two or three different holdings. instead
of one set bid for any OF them, the
partner will have better idea of the
possibilities of the hand than II the
same bid were made on ALL
]; 1t is assumed as starting point
that suit Of five cards to the ace kins
is worth bid OF one trick why should
there not be some way Of showing
whether IL Is just that and no more or
whether there is something else in the
hand and what II Is.
Take two very similar hands so far
as strength is concerned. one with i've
hearts to the ace king and an outside
ace. and the other with six hearts to
the ace king with no outside tricks
the bidder holds the outside trick and
another way TO show that he has moth
ing bu; the six hearts. Then. again,
suppose he holds six hearts to the ace
King ard the outside ace as well. WHY
not show that as distinguished from
either Of the lesser holdings
Few persons have any idea of the
number Of tricks that fall to the trumps
on the average or why Many years
ago undertook an investigation of
the results Of all the recorded champion
snip whist matches with view to dis
covering just how many Of the thirteen
tricks on the average fell to the trumn,
so as to ascertain how many were
likely TO be won by cards In the plain
suits.
Inc published results were rather
startling and tended largely to dis
, courage the long suffers. as they proved
pretty conc!usively that there was IT.
tie nope for anything smaller than a
KING II the opponents had the stronger
trump hands. The number Of aces ana
kings that the long suffers carried home
with them was astonishing
Auction Hands Analysed.
When auction came into vogue 7 I'M
dertook the same Investigation Of
very large number of hands played at
that game to find out the proportion Of
Tricks that fell to the trumps. Strange
as II may appear almost the same prop
osition holds good as at whist.
one would naturally suppose that
the privilege OF picking out the longest
suit for the trumps would enable the
partners to win more tricks with trumps
at auction than. at whist. So IT does
but the number OF tricks out OF the
thirteen won by trumps and in plain
suits remains practically the same as
II did at whist
The interesting point In the results
or this taoulation was the number of
trump tricks won by the players other
than the declarer. especially the dummy
Another point was the fact that an ex-
ira trump in the declarer's hand was
as good as an ace of a short suit. The
reason for this is rather dificult 70
state In exact terms. but here is a con-
crete example OF what the result wa.
found TO be in large number OF the
1000 deals examined
Take these two hands:
II. AKx xxx II. AKYx