I have just finished reading an article by an expert in auction
bridge, and it has left me in a cold sweat. As near as I can make out,
it presupposes that every one who plays bridge knows what he is doing
before he does it, which simply means that I have been going along all
this time working on exactly the wrong theory. It may incidentally
explain why I have never been voted the most popular bridge player in
Wimblehurst or presented with a loving cup by admiring members of the
Neighborhood Club.
Diametrically opposed to the system of "think-before-you-play,"
advocated by this expert, my game has been built up purely on
intuition. I rely almost entirely on the inner promptings of the
moment in playing a card. I don't claim that there is anything
spiritualistic about it, for it does not work out with consistent
enough success to be in any way uncanny. As a matter of fact, it
causes me a lot of trouble. When one relies on instinct to remind one
of what the trumps are, or how many of them have been played, there
is bound to be a slip-up every so often.
But what chagrins me, after reading the expert's article, is the
thought that all this while I may have been playing with people who
were actually thinking the thing out beforehand in a sordid sort of
way, counting the trumps played and figuring on who had the queen or
where the ten-spot lay. I didn't think there were such people in the
world.
Here I have been going ahead, in an honest, hail-fellow-well-met mood,
sometimes following suit, sometimes trumping my partner's trick,
always taking it for granted that the idea was to get the hand played
as quickly as possible in order to talk it over and tell each other
how it might have been done differently.
It is true that, now and again, I have noticed sharp looks directed at
me by my various partners, but I have usually attributed them to a
little mannerism I have of humming softly while playing, and I have
always stopped humming whenever my partner showed signs of
displeasure, being perfectly willing to meet any one halfway in an
effort to make the evening a pleasant one for all concerned. But now I
am afraid that perhaps the humming was only a minor offense. I am
appalled at the thought of what really was the trouble.
I should never have allowed myself to be dragged into it at all. My
first big mistake was made when, in a moment of weakness, I consented
to learn the game; for a man who can frankly say "I do not play
bridge" is allowed to go over in the corner and run the pianola by
himself, while the poor neophyte, no matter how much he may protest
that he isn't "at all a good player, in fact, I'm perfectly rotten,"
is never believed, but dragged into a game where it is discovered, too
late, that he spoke the truth.
[Illustration: "Attributed them to a little mannerism I have of
humming softly while playing."]
But it was a family affair at first. Dora belonged to a whist club
which met every Friday afternoon on strictly partizan lines, except
for once a year, when they asked the men in. My experience with this
organization had been necessarily limited, as it held its sessions
during my working hours. Once in a while, however, I would get home in
time to meet in the front hall the stragglers who were just leaving,
amid a general searching for furs and over-shoes, and for some
unaccountable reason I usually felt very foolish on such occasions.
Certainly I had a right, under the Common Law, to be coming in my own
front door, but I always had a sneaking feeling, there in the midst of
the departing guests, that the laugh was on me.
One Friday, when I was confined to my room with a touch of neuralgia
(it was in my face, if you are interested, and the whole right side
swelled up until it was twice its normal size--I'd like to tell you
more about it some time), I could hear the sounds of carnival going on
downstairs. The noises made by women playing bridge are distinctive.
At first the listener is aware of a sort of preliminary conversational
murmur, with a running accompaniment of shuffling pasteboards. Then
follows an unnatural quiet, punctuated by the thud of jeweled knuckles
or the clank of bracelets as the cards are played against the baize,
with now and then little squeals of dismay or delight from some of the
more demonstrative and an occasional "Good for you, partner!" from an
appreciative dummy. Gradually, as the hand draws toward its close,
there begins a low sound, like the murmurings of the stage mob in the
wings, which rapidly increases, until the room is filled with a shrill
chatter, resembling that in the Bird House in Central Park, from which
there is distinguishable merely a wild medley:
"If you had led me your queen--was so afraid she might trump in
with--my dear, I didn't have a face card in my--threw away just the
wrong--had the jack, 10, 9, and 7--thought Alice had the king--ace and
three little ones--how about honors?--my dear, _simply_ frightful--if
you had returned my lead--my _dear_!"
This listening in at bridge, however, was the nearest I had ever been
to the front, until it came time for the Friday Afternoon Club to let
down the bars and have a Men's Night. I had no illusions about this
"Men's Night," but it was a case of my learning to play bridge and
accompanying Dora, or of her getting some man in from off the sidewalk
to take my place, and I figured that it would cause less talk if I
were there to play myself. As I think it over now, I feel that the
strange-man scheme might have worked out with less comment being made
than my playing drew down.
But it was for this purpose that I allowed myself to be instructed in
the rudiments of bridge. I had nothing permanent in mind in absorbing
these principles, fully expecting to forget them again the day after
the party. I miscalculated by about one day, it now seems.
The expert, whose article has been such an inspiration to me, had some
neat little diagrams drawn for him, showing just where the cards lay
in the four hands, and with the players indicated as A, B, Y, and Z;
apparently the same people, come up in the world, who, in our algebras
some years ago, used to buy and sell apples to each other with
feverish commercialism and to run races with all sorts of unfair
handicaps. What a small world it is, after all!
It seems to me, therefore, that, since this is a pretty fairly
technical article, it might be well if I were to utilize the same
diagrammatic device and terse method of description, to show the exact
course of the first hand in which I participated at the party.
A and B are our opponents, X my partner, and I (oddly enough) myself.
A is Ralph Thibbets, one of those cool devils who think they know all
about a game, and usually do. He has an irritating way of laying down
his cards, when the hand is about half played, and saying: "Well, the
rest are mine," and the most irritating part of it all is that, when
you have insisted on figuring it out for yourself, he is found to be
right. I disliked him from the first.
B is Mrs. Lucas, who breathes hard and says nothing, but clanks her
cards down with finality, seeming to say: "That for you!" She got me
nervous.
X, my partner, used to be a good friend of mine. And, so far as I am
concerned, I would be perfectly willing to let bygones be bygones and
be on friendly terms again.
In utilizing the expert's method of description, I shall improve on it
slightly by also indicating the conversation accompanying each play, a
feature which is of considerable importance in a game.
B deals, and finally makes it three diamonds, after X has tried to bid
hearts without encouragement from me. I pass as a matter of principle,
not being at all sure of this bidding proposition.
I lead, with a clear field and no particular object in view, the 8 of
diamonds. It looks as uncompromising as any card in my hand. "Leading
_trumps_," says X with a raising of the eyebrows. "What do you know
about that!" I exclaim. "I had forgotten that they were trumps. I must
be asleep. Like the old Irishman when St. Peter asked him where he
came from, and he said: 'Begorra--'" A cuts this story short by
playing the 3 of diamonds; X, with some asperity, discards the 3 of
spades, and B takes the trick with the 10-spot. Silence.
"That story of the Irishman and St. Peter," I continue, "was told to
me by a fellow in Buffalo last week who had just come from France. He
said that while he was in a place called 'Mousong,' or 'Mousang,' he
actually saw--"
"Your play," says X. "Oh, I beg your pardon," I say, "whose jack of
spades is that?" "Mine," says B, drumming on the table with her finger
nails and looking about the room at the pictures. Having more poor
diamonds than anything else in my hand, and aiming to get them out of
the way as soon as possible to give the good cards a chance, I play
the 5 of diamonds.
"What, trumping it? Have you no spades?" shouts A. I can see that I
have him rattled; so, although, as a matter of fact, I have got plenty
of spades, I smile knowingly and sit tight. These smart Alecs make me
sick, telling me what I should play and what I should not play. A
accepts the inevitable and plays his 2-spot. X, considerably cheered
up, plays the 4 and says: "Our trick, partner." I pick up the cards
and mix them with those already in my hand, reverting, for the time,
to poker tactics. This error, alone among all that I make during the
game, is unobserved.
"Well, I suppose that you people are all excited over that new baby up
at your house," I say pleasantly to A, just to show him that I can be
gracious in victory as well as in defeat. "Let's see, is it a boy or a
girl?"
"It's _your lead_!" he replies shortly.
"I beg your pardon," I say; "I certainly must be asleep to-night."
And, as my thumb is on the 5 of diamonds, I lead it.
"Here, here!" says A, "wasn't it the 5 of diamonds that you trumped in
with just a minute ago?" That man has second-sight. As a matter of
fact, I suspect that there is something crooked about him. "Yes, it
is," corroborates B in her longest speech of the evening. X says:
"Where _is_ that trick that we took?" And then it is discovered that
it has found its way into my hand, from which it is disentangled with
considerable trouble and segregated. As for me, I pass the whole thing
off as a joke.
"I saw in the paper this morning," I began when the situation has
become a little less complicated, "where a woman in Perth Amboy found
a hundred dollars in the lining of an old lounge in--"
[Illustration: "'Here, here!' says A, 'wasn't it the 5 of diamonds
that you trumped in with just a minute ago?'"]
"It's your lead, if you don't mind," says A very distinctly. "You have
made only one false start out of a possible three. Try again." I
pretend not to hear this sarcasm, and, just to show him that there is
life in the old dog yet, I lead my ace of spades.
"Look here, my dear sir!" says A, quite upset by now. "Only one hand
ago you refused spades and trumped them. That revoking on your part
gives us three tricks and we throw up the hand."
"Fair enough," I retort cheerfully, "three is just what you bid, isn't
it? Quite a coincidence, I call it," and with that I throw my cards on
the table with considerable relief. Nothing good could have come of
this hand, even if we had played until midnight.
From all sides now arose the familiar sounds of the post-mortem: "I
had the jack, 10, 9, and 7, all good, but I just couldn't get in with
them.... If you had only led me your king, we could have set them at
least two.... I knew that Grace had the queen, but I didn't dare try
to finesse.... We had simple honors.... As soon as I saw you leading
spades, I knew that there was nothing in it," etc., etc.
But at our table there was no post-mortem. Not because there had been
no death, but there seemed to be nothing to say about it. So we sat,
marking down our scores, until Dora came up behind me and said: "Well,
dear, how is your game coming on?"
As no one else seemed about to speak, I said: "Oh, finely, I'm getting
the hang of it in no time."
My partner muttered something about hanging being too good, which
seemed a bit uncalled for.
And so I went through the evening, meeting new people and making new
friends. And, owing to Dora's having neglected to teach me the details
of score keeping, I had to make a system up for myself, with the
result that I finished the evening with a total of 15,000 points on my
card and won the first prize.
"Beginner's luck," I called it with modest good nature.