Evening star., 1928-10-30
BRIDGE TALKS
By MRS. JOHN HUNcE. JR.

In the last talk we discussed the
shuttle. the cut, the deal and the ar
ranging of the cards, and now We take
up the question Of bids.
Auction bridge, from its very name,
would indicate that an auction is held,
and In this auction the player bids
for the privilege of naming the trump
and of playing the dummy hand (Which
is the hand Of the partner Of the per-
son winning the bid. The game di-
vides itself into two natural parts
the first is the auction and the second
is the playing Of the cards after the
auction is closed.
We will begin with the discussion Of
the bids in the auction. During the
auction it is customary to make the
bids in terms of the number Of tricks
above the book. The book is a crea-
tion inherited from whist. It was
arbitrarily fixed at six tricks, because
if both sides had that number, the
odd trick would decide the winner Of
the hand. If a player bid one heart
for example, he says II bid one heart"
which means he wants to be declarer,
with hearts the trump, and believes by
this contract that he will win at least
one odd trick. That IS, one trick over
the book Of six, or seven tricks in all
After the one heart, should the next
player bid two clubs, he would be Of
fering to contract to win two odd (or
eight tricks, with clubs the trump
The second player In that case would
overbid or oyercan the first bidder.
trumpS, he would outbid the other
two, by offering to win eight tricks
two odd if the hand should be played
without any trump. It will be noted
that the two clubs outranked one heart
and that two no trumpS outranked two
clubs. That Is because bid Of more
tricks outranks a bid of fewer tricks,
and as between two bids of the same
number Of tricks, diamonds outrank
clubs, hearts outrank diamonds, spades
outrank hearts and no trump outranks
all these suits. This is the order in
which the declarations count. When a
contract is made, each odd trick at no
trump counts 10; at spades, g: at
hearts, g.; at diamonds, Z, and at
clubs, 6.
The rank of suits in bidding must
not be confused with their rank in
play. A bid of one, two or three
spades outranks a bid of one, two or
three in any other suit, but If clubs
are trumps, the duce of clubs would
capture the ace Of spades, and no suit
except the trump has any preference
over any other.
When there is no trump, the high
est card of the suit led wins the trick.
When there Is q trump suit, the high
est trump on the trick wins it, regard
less of the card led, or the rank of
the plain" (non-trump) cards. In no
trump contracts the taking power of
one suit Is the same as that of another;
1t all depends upon which suit is
lead to a trick.
In auction bridge there are four
types of declarations: First, the buy
ing bid; second, the declining bid or
pass: third, the double; fourth, the re-
double.
The first two mean exactly what they
say, that is, as positive offer for the
privilege Of playing the hand; or the
statement by passing, that the bidder
is not in position to make such an
offer.
The third type is made for two pur-
poses, and means that the value of
the trick named by opponent becomes
twice its normal value and, likewise, the
penalty becomes twice its normal value.
In the same way the re-double in
creases the value of the trick and
named to four times its original
value Neither third or fourth types of
bid can be made until a previous posi-
tive bid has been made.