Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-05-03

tentionaIy violating n law OF the
game and Intentionally making an
unsound bid to deceive opponents. In
the first case the offender Is q cheater
pure and simple. In the latter he is a daredevil
1t is perhaps the difference between a knave
and fool The first player is misusing and
abusing the law. whereas the latter is taking
q risk within the law, and If the opponents
see through his ruSe they may punish him
severely.
That question has come up frequently In
these days of contract bridge, when so many
psychic" or "camouhage" bids are made by
ceitain types of players. 1t was always con-
. gi6ered perfectly fair in auction, and still is
in contract, to strive to make the other side
bid too much. If it is ethical to outwit them
that way it is just as ethical to try to make
them bid too little, or to hamstring them into
playing the hand in the wrong declaration.
Many otherwise capable players seem to con-
slider bridge 4 game like golf, in which each
side tries to do its best without any defensive
efforts to keep the opposition from doing its
best. At least some have that view of the bid
ding, though in the play they try to take all
the tricks they can against the other side. There
Is no getting away from the fact that bridge is
competitive game and every balanced game
has defensive well as an offensive feature.
In base ball there is pitching, in foot ball
tackling, in billiards safety play. Likewise.
bridge is not merely a matter of getting all
you can out of your cards while the opponents
get all they can out of theirs; it is also a mat
ter of not letting them get anything out of
theirs which you can prevent.
Psychic bidS'-or Lying bids" as a cor
respondent calls them-are not in any sense
uneghical flom a general standpoint. If the
bidder takes the same chance Of misleading his
partner that he does Of misleading the op-
ponentS, his risk is fair one to take. II, how
ever his partner knows In advance that he is
likely to make psychic" in q certain kind Of
situation and the opponents do not. he is taking
an unfair advantage and 50 is . violator' of the
code Of honor Of the game.
rather prominent player bid psychic"
one no trump recently in third hand posi-
ton after his partner and right-hand oppo-
nent had passed. These were his cards:
A8742 WJe53 AJ4 3es8
With such a weak hand he knew that if the
first two players could not open the bidding
fourth hand must have q powerful bunch Of
cards. His no trump was to confuse the op-
position, perhaps scare them into the wrong
declaration and then possibly cause them to
misplay the hand because they would count on
him for the adverse strength. So it turned out,
for the next player doubled, his partner took
out with clubs, it was carried to five clubs and
the contract was defeated because two illnesses
were taken the wrong way Had the psychic
bid not been made, the opponents would have
arrived at three no trump contract and would
have made two extra tricks.
Have you ever made that particular
psychic before with your present partnerp'
the misleader was asked
Eyes
Then your partner knew a third hand open
Ing no trump by you might be a psychic?"
No, he had to guess whether it was or not"
But he knew he had to guess in this satua-
ton, and we did not" responded his opponent.
CAS- it happened he guessed right. Otherwise,
after the double he would have raised the no
trump with his hand else redoubIed. con-
teTd that such bid is absolutely unethical
and unfair when your partner knows it is likely
to be a psychic in that situation and We do
not
The argument got the two sides no nearer to
ag cement but we consider the bid utterly I'M
fair and unethical. II. however, those players
BID not discussed such bids before and neither
knew about the other using that particular
psychic" bid then his tactics would be AtSo-
lutely fair because he would be taking the same
Eisi of fooling his partner as of fooling his OPP
ponents Or If he explained to opponents the
kind Of psychic" they might expect he would
be playing fair.