Evening star., 1940-06-16

card suit, instead Of no-trump as
did most Of the players. He reached
grand slam in diamonds. All Of
the others were in grand slam bid
n no trump, spades or hearts, ex-
eept one declarer who stopped at six
hearts, which was made.
DR.. Conolly got a club lead up to
his ace-queen, and on these cards
he discarded two hearts from dunn
my. After drawing trumps he had
one in each hand. One, in dummy,
trumped a club, and the other, in
declarer's hand, trumped a heart
after one heart had been discarded
on the fourth lead Of spades.
1t all happened because with the
responding hand DR.. Conolly bid
his four-card suit rather than a no
trump.
An incident occurred in a local
duplicate game last week wherein
1t would seem that ethics and
sportsmanship should prevail rather
than a strict application of the
rules in settling the disputed point
involved. A similar happening may
develop in any game unless extreme
care is exercised.
East was dealer, an dhaving a part
score, made a shaded bid of one
spade. South, holding the ace OF
that suit and fairly strong hand
called two no-trump and was raised
to three by his partner. The play
was not an easy one. 1t involved a
finesse of the heart queen in order
to make the contract. After run
ming clubs, declarer led small to the
ace-eight-three of hearts in the
dummy. He called for the play OF
the ace, but dummy misunder-
stood, as lace" and eight" sound
much alike, and played the eight
East fell upon the trick with the
queen and quickly led spade, hav-
ing four good ones. Declarer pro-
tested that he had asked for the
play of the ace The director was
called, and the rule was invoked
1t provides that "If declarer desig-
mates card in dummy to be played
and his partner plays another, the
error must be corrected on demand
OF any player, If it is detected before
defender plays. If defender
plays before the error Is noted, the
card played from dummy stands as
regular"
Several things were apparent, one
that South being a good player
would not have called for the eight
on the first round of the suit: two
that dummy had misunderstood the
call, and in the third place, West
an opponent, stated he had under
stood declarer to call for the ace
But East had taken the trick and
led to the next one and demanded
that under the rule the play should
stand. There was nothing the di-
rector could do but uphold the rules
In cases of this kind the gooc
fellowship of the game demand.
that the error should have been
corrected rather than the strict
letter Of the rule enforced. East
realized by quickly leading to the
next trick that a mistake had beer
made and took advantage of it
Declarer was set and thereby lost
the evenings prize.
Amos w. Jackson writes: "I an
somewhat confused regarding thu
proper response to an original two
bid. particularly when holding a Ger.
tain type of hand like this one
My partner opened with bid o.
two spades held spades xxx
hearts x; diamonds K-J-x-x: club.
xXxX. What should my response
have been?"
Unquestionably your bid should b,
three spades. even though the hane
contains only one king and one jack
1t is really worth more than ont
raise. but since the bidding will no
die short of game you can afford t.
go SLOW With four trumps ane
a singleton heart, in addition tt
the outside king-jack, the hand il
so strong opposite a two-spade bid.
der that if you were to respone
with two no-trumps you would fine
it very embarrassing to counterac
the impression of weakness which
such a bid would give.
On the theory of the original two
bid Sam Fry, jr., says: THE two bic
is made to provide for those ire.
mendous hands in which one player
holds, in addition to a goodly per.
centage of the outstanding honor
strength, good distribution besides
This combination of great honor
strength and good distribution tell!
the player that game is practically
certain and a slam quite probable
If hands of this type we're openec
with one of suit, the danger woule
naturally exist that partner might