the "1-3-2" goulashes

LELIA HATTERSLEY

an authority on contract bridge explains the widespread vogue for passing goulashes

• Fickle as has been the public fancy in Passing Goulashes, and varied as have been the "passes" adopted, it seems that the "One, Three, Two" order has attained such widespread vogue as to promise more than a possibility of permanency. The general popularity of the "One, Three, Two" Goulash is doubtless due to the fact that it offers keen players the best opportunity to exercise their skill, while, at the same time, providing comparative safety for the less experienced.

Passing Goulashes, however, are too new to have acquired any standardized convention. In a recent Vanity Fair article I gave a thorough exposition of some of the conventions which I have developed and used in playing the "One, Three, Two" Goulash. These rules may be briefly outlined as follows:

First Pass: The first card passed always indicates a suit you desire to collect. To show a generally powerful hand with no predominating suit, pass a low card of your one weak suit (lower than a six). Otherwise give the highest card of your most promising suit of four or more. When partners indicate the same suit, the one passing the higher valued card must be elected to collect the suit.

Second Pass: If you have a dominating hand at least good for a game bid with no further assistance, keep your partner's card, and make any discard which tends to improve your hand. Lacking a dominating hand, always return your partner's key card, usually with others of his suit. Having none of his suit, give your best side cards or retain them to build your own hand, according to whether it is weak or strong. In passing your partner's suit or in clearing a side suit, the other is highest cards first.

Third Pass: Entirely optional. Adopt no rules for this pass but keep your point of view flexible, and be guided solely by previous developments. Unless desiring to arrange an assisting cross-ruff your remaining cards in partner's suit should usually be passed. The advisability of keeping one of partner's suit or giving him one of your own for entry varies according to the type of hand and the previous passes.

There is a certain amount of dissent from the opinion that the first card passed should be the highest of a suit. Many players use an elaborate system of signal cards to show a suit longer or shorter than five, topped by the Ace or a lower honour, etc., etc. Having thoroughly tested both methods I am convinced that while the signalling system has much to recommend it, the highest card of the suit will in the majority of cases prove the most practical "pass". The definite information conveyed is usually invaluable for defensive purposes. Again, it often enables your partner to switch to No Trump when you cannot build his suit. But, best of all, the passing of the highest card of your suit preserves the indispensable low card signal to show dominant strength in the three remaining suits. Unless your partner's hand is both short-suited and trickless, the immediate showing of your three strong suits will usually result in a game at least. If your partner has a suit of any merit, he knows from the outset either that you can build him up, or that he must cooperate with you for a No Trump.

• Even with quite a weak partner this signal will often work out successfully. (It should be explained that weak partners are very often weak in passing goulashes because of lack of experience rather than because of a faulty card sense.) The following hand illustrates the situation I have just described:

Should South not use the No Trump signal he would call for Diamonds. Thus, if East and West properly massed their suits, his partnership would fail to build a game hand. But if South starts with the No Trump signal, passing the 4 of Hearts, his game practically builds itself. When North, who has given the Queen of Spades, receives the 4 of Hearts, he responds by sending over the Q, 10, 8, while South returns his partner's Queen of Spades with the Ace and King. North's last pass is the Ace, Jack of Clubs. To provide either for No Trump or Spade play, South gives up the Ace, King of Diamonds. The opening bid should be three No Trumps—the full strength of South's hand. North, holding no strength which is unknown to his partner, goes by. Even though thoroughly conversant with the technique of the exchanges, unless a player is quite familiar with the idiosyncrasies of Passing Goulashes he is apt to make costly blunders in the bidding and play of these freakish hands. These blunders can usually be traced to the player's mistaken impression that he is confronted by problems somewhat, if not entirely, similar to those occurring in Contract. As a matter of fact, the first step toward improving your technique in Passing Goulashes is to forget everything you have known about Contract, and to realize that you are playing an entirely different and totally unrelated game. To be sure, the scoring and the mechanics of play in a Goulash are the same, but there all similarity begins and ends.

In the case of valuations the dissimilarity is most marked. For example, at Contract a hand such as the following: A None, AK-Q-6-4-2, A-K-Q-J, A-K-Q, would hold the very reasonable promise of a grand slam at Hearts. Played at the same suit in a Passing Goulash, unless the partner had withheld some Hearts, it is highly improbable that the hand would even produce a game. The usual goulash distribution would find all seven of the missing trumps in the possession of one opponent. In short, the theory of equal distribution of the outstanding trumps on which suit hands are valued at Contract becomes a complete anomaly in Passing Goulashes where a massing of a particular suit is the rule, a distribution of it being the exception.

• Guided by these fundamental facts, an experienced Goulash player is always prepared to switch from the preparation of a suit bid to a No Trump when the development of the hand indicates that the latter is more advisable. In the example shown below, if East and West mass their suits for defense, North and South can not make a slam in any suit, but they can, with correct passing, build an invincible grand slam at No Trumps.

When South, who has passed the Ace of Spades, receives the Ace of Clubs, he recognizes a dominating hand. So, retaining his partner's Ace, he sends over his 4 and 3 of Diamonds and 3 of Clubs. In the meantime, North has returned the Ace of Spades with the Ace and King of Diamonds. South, now realizing the improbability of developing a slam in Spades, switches to No Trump, passing his Jack of Clubs with the King of Hearts for entry into his partner's hand. North's final pass should be the King and Queen of Clubs—cards which enable South immediately to declare a grand slam at No Trumps.

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The building of such a hand seems evident with all the cards in sight, but were North to slip up on his final pass and give his high Diamonds instead of his Clubs, neither partner could soundly declare a grand slam. Lacking the Queen of Diamonds and unable to place the King, Queen of Clubs, South could only bid a small slam which North, not positive that his partner holds the Ace of Hearts, should pass.

The following Goulash deal played at the Cavendish Club illustrates the stupendous swing in the points depending on scientific play.

The passing followed the old order with an immediate exchange of four cards between partners (since abandoned by the Cavendish Club in favor of the "One, Three, Two"). Both sides were vulnerable. Starting with the following hand, 4k None, A-K-9-7-43, 0 A-Q-J-10, 4 8-7-6, East passed the 9 of Hearts with three small Clubs, and received the 10-6-5-2 of Hearts. Thus East ended with this holding: 4 None, A-K-10-7-6-5-43-2, 0 A-Q-J-10, None, and knew these pertinent facts: West had no Hearts except the 9 (his pass included the 2 of Hearts) ; the adversaries held the Q-J-8 which might or might not be massed. The bidding proceeded:

South West North East

Pass Pass 6 Spades 7 Hearts

Pass Pass 7 Spades Double

Pass Pass Redouble

On his seven Heart bid, East realized that he might go down two tricks, but, even so, considered it a good sacrifice to save a small slam. He did not worry about driving North to a grand slam as he was practically certain that, with the dominating Spade suit, North would have immediately declared a grand slam had he not held one losing trick. For this reason East, with his two Aces, felt secure in his double of Seven Spades. North's redouble surprised him and left him with nothing to do but decide which of his Aces he should try for, Heart or Diamond. He pondered over the question long enough to conclude that North would never have redoubled had North's losing card been in the suit declared by the leader. So out East stepped with his Ace of Diamonds, into the very trap which North had cleverly set for him with his camouflage redouble to prevent the Heart lead. The full holdings turned out to he as follows,

When East saw North trump the Ace of Diamonds, enter the Dummy with the 9 of Spades and discard his losing Heart on the set-up Diamond King, he realized that a little further deduction would have shown the Heart was the only sure setting lead.

How could East have deduced that North was marked with a losing Heart, and saved his side this gigantic loss? By the fact that South would certainly have doubled East's grand slam in Hearts had he held the Q-J-8.