Evening star., 1936-11-15

6EluClplCS VI o1uuAAS'
r UNLIKE other bridge systems.
which change radically at
least once q year and some
) times oftener, the Four Aces
system, which to all intent and pur-
poses represents the consensus Of the
country's most successful bridge play
ers, has remained the same in al
standard particulars since its incep-
ton in 1888.
However. there obviously must be
progress in contract, as In everything
else. In the last three years there
have been certain developments in
general bidding principles. Some of
these are rather complicated, and it
would be well for our readers, except
those who wish to devote a great
deal of time to studying bridge, to
leave them alone. In this and in our
next few Sunday articles we intend
to give resume of the principles we
ourselves follow, and will endeavor
to show the manner in which any
bridge player should incorporate them
into his own game.
As a first step in bidding. every
bridge player should adopt a basis
for valuing his own hand, and at the
same time should endeav
to familiarize himself with the basis
used by his partner. Our own basis
Is q point count in which an ace is
valued at three points, king two, a
queen one, and a jack one-haf.
In our opinion this is an almost
perfect guide to the relative values of
the high cards. At the same time,
since the total point value Of the deck
is always 26, If you know how many
points you have and how many points
your partner has. you know exactly
what you miss.
THERE are several other point
counts (the Reith, 6, 4, 3. 2, !, and
Work, 4, 3, 2, y. Both of these value
the honors In different proportions
from ours and are slightly inaccurate.
as both have definite tendency to
cause aces and kings to be under
valued.
Then we have various trick counts,
such as honor tricks, primary tricks.
secondary tricks, etc. The general
basis Of these Is that an ace counts
| one trick. an ace-king two tricks and
o guarded king one-hah trick.
While they have the advantage of
simplicity, their weakness lies in the
fact that various combinations of cards
produce more tricks one time than
exactly the same cards do in differ
ent arrangement. Thus, 1t Is possible
that one arrangement of cards will
produce a total of only seven tricks
for the four hands, another as many
as 10 tricks. Hence, in slam bidding
you lose some precision. For example,
| II you know that you and your part
ner have seven tricks between you, you
do not know whether that represents
all the high cards or if the opponents
hold three tricks against you. How
ever, on the average, with this method
there are eight or eight and a half
tricks in each deal. and, roughly, one
trick equals three points in the -Four
Aces count.
Having adopted our valuation basis
as start. our next step is to consider
the opening bid. Here we have as
our first principle that of simplicity
and We suggest, and ourselves follow
the principle that the requirements
for an opening bid should be the same
for first, second, third or fourth hand
vulnerable or not. There are excep-
tions to this, but this rule applies sue.
cessfully to 95 per cent of all bids
and the average player would prob
ably do well just to follow it and let
the exceptions go.
However. before the opening bids
let us consider the pass. Most people
do not realize that the initial pass
must convey a certain message to part
ner. namely that the player who is
passing has a certain limited high card
value to his hand. In the -Four Aces
| system we say, ANY hand with an
H. C. v. Of nine and one-half or more
must be bid originally"
incidentally, this rule gives a good
example Of the simplicity of the point
count, since, using the point count,
we are able to give an exact value
This, of course, should not be taken
| to mean that you pass any hand with
less than nine and one-half points