The Passing of the No-Trumper

How Short-Strong and Long-Weak Major Suit Bids Are Gradually Replacing No-trumps

R. F. FOSTER

THE history of the gradual development of bidding tactics at auction makes rather interesting reading, and the final chapter has not yet been written. 1 he best system of original calls is still unsettled, and every year brings forth new ideas on the subject.

Apart from those based on counting, there are certain well defined systems for bidding on the cards themselves and their distributions.

It is not necessary to go back to the beginning of auction in 1903, as the only changes which are of interest to the reader of today are those based on the new count, which advanced spades to 9 and cut no-trumpers to 10, giving us the present scale of trick values as 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and all within reach of game.

At the time that this count was introduced, the winning system was supposed to be to hide in the high grass with the big hands and play for penalties. At that time, December 11. 1911, the dealer was still obliged to make a bid of some kind, so that the old one spade (worth only 2 a trick) was still available as equivalent to a pass. A record ol 5 00 deals published soon after the new count went into effect shows that there were 238 passes, 102 major-suit bids, 122 no-trumps, and 38 minor suits bid bv the dealer. Since then we have no statistics of the dealer's bids, but only of the final declarations.

THIS system of passing hands that would now be freely bid as no-trumps, led to second hand's refusing to bid, and as it was conventional for third hand to take his partner out and give him a chance to bid his hand, the gambit ceased to work, and turned out to be a losing game. This gradually led to the present system, bidding no-trumps on any hand a queen above average three suits stopped.

The only survival of the old system of Iving in the high grass with a powerful hand is what Bryant McCampbell calls in his book "the deferred bid". That is, postponing the bid one intends to finish up with until the adversaries are ready to be fleeced, or think thev have a safe double. Against sound bidders the deferred bid is of no use, as proved at the last championship matches in New London.

For two or three years following the introduction of the new count it became the fashion for players to confine their bids to suits in which they had the "tops", but thev had an exaggerated idea of the number of tops necessary. In spite of the fact that several leading writers insisted that two sure tricks at the top of five cards was enough for a bid, verv few would venture to make such a call without at least one sure trick outside. If there was no five-card suit, or no four-card suit with three top honours in it, the hand had to be passed unless it came up to the standard for no-trum ps.

Fhis led to bidding no-trumps on anv hands like the following:

Within the past year or so, players have been in the habit of bidding iour-cajrd suits very freely, and probably nine out of ten among the experts would call a major suit on either of these. A player can shift to no-trumps on the first if his partner calls the hearts; and, on the second, if his partner calls spades he can assist him. In either case he should be able to save tlie game against any bid by the adversaries.

Immediately after the introduction of the new count I advocated these four-card majorsuit bids with two sure tricks at the top, such as four hearts to the ace king, even without another trick in the hand. (See "Royal Auction Bridge" pp. 23 and 2 3.) The "authorities" ridiculed such a call as absurd, even in a minor suit.

Since the custom of bidding four-card major suits, even without both ace and king, but as weak as ace-jack-ten, has become rather common, I undertook to analyze several hundred deals that were all original no-trump bids a few years ago, and found that about 27 per cent, of them would now be transferred to the major-suit class. Here are two examples from recent duplicate games:

In the first hand the players who bid hearts went game, losing two diamonds and a trump. Those who bid no-trumps made the odd onlv. The other is an example of a "sportv" notrumper. It is good for the odd trick only. Played at spades it wins the game.

Having eliminated about 25 per cent, of the deals that used to be no-trumpers, and turned them into suit bids, we come now to another innovation, which is nothing new in England, 'O that perhaps the English may teach us something about bidding after all.

The latest among American players is to bid major suits with five or more, even without the tops, provided they have enough in the other suits to make up for the deficiency. I believe I may have been the first writer to lay down this principle as sound. On page 23 of the second edition of "Royal Auction Bridge" printed fifteen years ago, it is stated: "Anv deficiency in high cards or length must be made up for by winning cards in other suits. Each -uit that is a high card or a trump shy of the scale weight, must have an ace, or a king-queen, or king-jack-ten in some other suit to justify the deficiency in the suit bid. With onlv five cards to the king-jack, king-ten, or queen-jack, there should be two tricks in other suits."

A RECENT English writer, "Pachabo" published "Wrinkles on Royal Auction", using a sort oi Robertson rule for arriving at the strength oi a hand, his minimum being 19; counting aces 7, kings 5, queens 3 and jacks 1. He gives the following rule, the soundness of which he says he has tested by an exhaustive analysis of a great many hands.

"If your hand counts up the equivalent of a no-trump bid, you arc justified in calling a major suit, even ii only queen or jack high, instead of no-trump." Here is an example:

This hand counts 20.

W. C. Whitehead, in a recent article, endorses this system of bidding weak major suits instead of no-trumps, "provided the hand has compensating tricks", but of course he does not use the Robertson rule, arriving at the value of hand by his own rule of whole, half, and quarter tricks.

This system of bidding on quccn-and-jack high suits has been largely used by so-called uneducated players for some time, their idea being to bid the longest suit, regardless of tops. In my latest book, "Foster on Auction", I do not even mention the system, because at the time that book was written all the best plavers absolutely refused to recognize such bids. The argument against them was that the partner could not depend on them in case the situation developed into a defensive game or a business double. I his is only another example of a useful call that has been laid on the shelf in deference to the demands of the experts. Another and one oi the best in the game, was the minor suit bid of two, when that was the onlv suit missing in a no-trumper.

'1'he selection of a major suit in preference to a no-trumper, even if the suit is without the tops, has two undoubted advantages:

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Your partner knows what you are bidding on, and that you have either strength or length, perhaps both. He never knows what you hold when you bid no-trumps, unless he has all the rest of the high cards himself. If he cannot support the suit, he will deny it. He does not know what to do when lie cannot support a no-trumper; some writers telling him not to take out with less than six of a minor suit; some with strength only in a major suit, and none of them giving any solid reasons for their advice—only theory. My reasons for the take-out are based on facts.

Some interesting developments arise, especially in duplicate games, from the difference between bidding notrumps and calling a long weak major suit. Take this case, played at the Knickerbocker Whist Club:

Those who conservatively bid a diamond on this hand were left to play it and made three odd, 30 points.

Those who tried no-trump made two odd, 50 points. The only ones who called the spades went game. At one table it went this way:

A led a club, which Z won. A trump put dummy in, and two winning clubs gave Z two heart discards. The return of the trump brought the king from B, who led the hearts, and Z trumped the return of that suit. Z then picked up B's trump and led three rounds of diamonds* and after trumping the heart made the fourth diamond and the game.

It this style of bidding gets popular we shall have to make another reduction in the number of original notrump calls. The best players have always regarded them as dangerous; and they are daily getting scarcer.

W'SWKR TO THE MARCH PROBLEM

This was the distribution in Problem LXIX, in which only three tricks were asked for, nevertheless it was not particularly easy.

There are no trumps and Z leads. Y and Z want three tricks. T his is how they get them:

Z starts with the jack of clubs, which Y wins and leads the heart. This Z wins, A discarding a diamond. Z now leads his smallest spade. If B is allowed to win this trick with the jack he can make the top heart and the top diamond, but as he cannot get rid of the lead he must eventually lose a trick to the ten of clubs, which is the suit Y keeps.

If A wins the spade trick with the king, lie lias nothing to lead but diamonds, and B must win the trick, so we get the same result as we did in the trump play.

There arc two plausible false openings. If Z starts with the jack of hearts, A discarding a diamond, and Z then follows with the small spade, B will win the spade and lead the high diamond, following with a small club. By keeping the ten of hearts he prevents Z from discarding the club. Now if Z is allowed to hold the club trick with the jack, A must make a spade and two diamonds. If Y overtakes Z's jack of clubs, he must lose two clubs to B, who will also make a heart trick.

The other false opening is for Z to start with the spade. This B wins and leads the diamond, following with a heart, which throws the lead back into Z's hand. If Z now leads the club and Y ducks it, B also ducks it, and Z is forced to give A two diamonds and a spade.