Show T CULBERTSON on CONTRACT by Ely World Champion Player and Greatest Gt Card rd Analyst APPROACH NOT APPROACH NOT DRIVE III Of all the various Bridge diseases the most destructive is perhaps the Complex in Opening bids This disease is especially prevalent with advanced prayers for fOl beginners still conserve the natural ll freshness of or their subconscious card sense which m many ln advanced players lose after alter wading through a half hall dozen text books Any An be beginner inner knows that his OpenIng OpenIng OpenIng Open- Open Ing bid is a leap in the dark and that the location of honor cards as well weIl as distribution of low cards in the remaining re remaining remaining re- re hands is still unknown What is more natural than to start out slowly by feeling ones one's way in m the thc dark and to throw out a network of Approach suit bids of one until the positions of the enemy and all ally are known No good general would choose a definite line of attack or defense defense defense de de- without reconnoitering his ter ter- ter- ter In fact even vcr very advanced players give too loo much wei weight ht to the scoring value of bids and not enough to their distributional aspect Cheapness recommends recommends recommends rec rec- itself and they blindly strive to gain gam a trick in the bid of a at the price of losing two or more tricks by failing to fit in jn distributions for a favorable morable trump bid The logical place for is toward the end of the bidding not at the beginning The reason is that crowds the bidding too quickly and eliminates man many valuable suit bids while a suit bid leaves the alternative of without in increasing increasing increasing in- in creasing the contract Hence the Approach Principle which requires require that when holding any biddable suit sui suitbe suitbe be it even a four-card four minor on one should start with a suit regardless of the strength of hand A switch to is always alway available a but only after exhausting possibilities all in ht suit bids In golone golf gol one drives first and then putts In Bridge there are arc no drives except shutout game overbids but there are area a series of Approach shots and putts With this hand hond only beginners am ama and anda a handful of super experts will make the correct natural bid The situation situation situa situa- tion is further aggravated through the fact that so many suffer from the Four Aces Complex a disease which is not fatal only because the combination of four Aces in a single hand is relatively rarA A J V 7 A A A 1076 V wN N V 3 W E Q 1096 s S. S 85 A A Q 54 V 4 A In South's position a 3 sanguine san player will open the bidding with a dashing two in which case North should raise the bid to three Result Result down down one trick West opens heart 5 South after winning the heart lead is eventually forced to make a losing finesse against the spade King which will give to West four heart tricks and andone andone andone one spade trick A more advanced group of players will modestly open with one and North will then pass In either cither case the disastrously shuts out the game bid in spades Experts will bid one not two spades North will raise raie to two spades South now bids three to indicate a very strong hand and at the same time a possible four-card four spade suit Norths North's distribution is more favorable to spades than A game is laid down against any defense In certain situations Opening suit two two bids bids and Jump Responses an approach suit bid becomes forcing that is both partners are barred from passing until the game is reached South's hand in m the example given is not stron strong enough for a Forcing two bid If Norths North's hand is blank the loss w will ll be severe if he has anything any any- thing at all he should not pass even cven after a one spade bid Two bids are superfluous with any ny but very powerful hands To have a justifiable two bid South needs say a heart King in lieu of heart Eight which w will ll give him the required 51 2 5 2 1 honor tricks in three suits With proper use of or Approach- Approach Forcing methods Contract ceases to be a crude affair of quick tricks but reaches much deeper into the real structure of cards and acquires a character in which the factor factor factor fac fac- tor of mass organization distributional distributional distributional distri distri- values is on a par with the factor of leadership honors Copyright 1931 by Ely Culbertson |