BRITISH AND AMERICAN BRIDGE
MOST card players will agree that Royal Auction Bridge is the best card game, devised by, the art of man. It is very new. The Portland Club, polishing the American model of Mr. Work, of the Philadelphia Racquet Club, did not establish the present system of scoring—and it revolutionized the game—till 1914.
Within ten years it was adopted everywhere and the game was played under the same rules round the circle of the world. To-day it flourishes, almost without a rival in its sphere, in most European countries and over a great part of North America. Its vogue in England is only exceeded by its popularity in India. This rapid spread of the game, though it indicates its attraction, is beginning to involve a certain danger, coming chiefly from America ; and our more conservative players, from the Portland Club downwards, begin to fear that their game may be destroyed by the newer tactics.
Now, Americans play Bridge, as they play most games, very acutely ; but their players, from very excess of zeal and liveliness of interest, are apt to encumber games by a. too ruthless endeavour after perfection. Card playing is an art, not a science ; and'an art dies when too scientific methods are brought to bear.
Though the rules are much the same, except in one particular, Bridge is astonishingly different in Philadelphia the birthplace of " the new count," and in St. James's Square, not much in the playing of the cards, but a great deal in the previous " conversation." The rules of the game permit what is in essence oral information. The original declaration of a suit, the support of a partner's bid, the doubling of an adversary's bid, or even silence, announces certain general facts, even among the most reactionary players. Conventions are established. Where- ever you play—even in Melbourne, where it seemed to the writer that the game was more individual than in other capitals—you tell the company that you have " quick tricks " (an excellent phrase) if you make an original bid in any suit, and that you hold at least four, if the suit is hearts or spades. The one artificial con- vention allowed to exist in Whist has been transferred to Bridge: You announce two of a suit—or in certain cases -four—by the same device as in Whist you called for trumps, or, as some used to say, " petered." The strict rules regulating leads are in themselves to some degree conventional. When you lead the king from ace-king, you do it to announce the possession of ace or queen. The lead is made not solely because it is the best for the making of tricks, but with the intention of telling something, and that is the essence of the convention.
We all confess that certain conventions are necessary and would be commendable if not necessary. But the gravamen of the charge against American Bridge-players, who, on the whole, play the game better than we do, is that they insist on piling Pelion on Ossa, on multiplying conventions, as if they intended to out-Grundy Mrs.Grundy. To live up to Bridge in New York you must laboriously learn exactly what information is conveyed by a whole host of bids and of doubles and redoubles, made not for their own sweet reasonableness, but simply and solely to give information. They are in essence artificial. You might almost as well wink three times with the left eye or practise the informatory patter of the stage thought-readers.
These conventions mostly spring from one very ingeni- ous • convention, invented in America almost -on the birthday of " the new count," or the rules of Bridge as played to-day. The writer has a very vivid memory of his first meeting with the convention in a New York Club very many years ago. Bridge-players will all knOW what the convention was. If your partner doubled the adversary's bid of one, he commanded you to bid your strongest suit, however weak. He doubled, not becauge he was strong in the adversary's suit, but generally be- cause he was weak in that and strong elsewhere. His argument was that, being strong in three suits, he could make success sure, if he could choose the one in which his partner excelled. This double was, and is, a very winning device ; and after loud outcries of horror at such artificiality, it has been generally adopted, in London as in Bombay. Our conservatives have quite humbly admitted their defeat and even expressed pleasure in the employment of this alien symbol. So far, so good ; but while we were slowly and reluctantly accepting this conventional and artificial- double, the Americans were building on its foundation a whole series of ancillary conventions. You mean one thing by doubling a bid of one in a suit, another thing by doubling one in no- trumps. The double of each is countered by a redouble with double meanings. None of these threats is meant to stand, but each of them gives an imperative order to the much-burdened partner to behave in such and such a way. Well might the witty Frenchman say, " I dislike the double entendre in the wrong place." Logic is on the side of the American innovator. If you have one con- vention, why not two, three, four, any number ? But • another witty Frenchman said long ago that " The British were saved by their want of logic." It is as good as certain that if these complex signals and stiff scientific rules for bidding and " assisting " are generally adopted the game will be ruined. The fun, the impromptu zest, will be bred out of it ; and until a better game is dis- covered (some say it has been found in China) that would be a pity. There is real virtue in an international game, and Bridge gives a happy medium between the hard work of chess (much increased since the popularity of the Queen's pawn opening), and the monotonous subtlety of whist.
Happily there are signs that the Americans, themselves who always test their theories in a most thorough and technical manner, are beginning to doubt the efficacy of the more elaborate forms of the newer conventions, and are discovering that the most winning players prac- tise the tactical use of surprise, in other words, play fast and loose on occasion with the lore of the books. They relax the excessive " rigour of the game," for the sake of a small element of Poker.
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