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Show CULBERTSON on CONTRACT By Ely CulberUon WoritTi Champion Player aad Greatest Card Analyst The bidding: South West North East ly Faas : :o INT Pass INT . Pass Pass Pass North's thre notrump bid. In spilt ot th, freakish distribution of his hand, was Justified by his diamond holding, as he thought that his tour diamonds to th, nine spot would give south anoth.r diamond stopper. West opened the singleton diamond, which south won with the ar. He then played th ac and king ol apadas to get some additional information on th, distribution ot th. hands. When east followed suit on both leads, south knew saven of his cards that ia to say, fiv, diamonds and two spades. South knew that west had held a sin-glton sin-glton diamond, and had followed twice to the spades. Therefore, ten of west's cards and six of east's cards were unknown to him. H. thought It Improbable that the club suit would break, because of the freakish distribution ot the dummy hand and th, singleton diamond dia-mond in the west hand. Hence, the odda were 10 to that the knav, of clubs waa held by west Because of thes, mathematics, declarer played th, king of cluba and then finessed th, ten of clubs. There had been nothing wrong with the mathematics, as wast actually held four cluba, but, unfortunately, the knav. waa In the east hand and th, contract waa aet three tricks, for s lose ot 450 points. FIOUBINO THB DISTRIBUTION Expert bridge players, aa soon ss sn" opening lead is made, sr, in the habit of determining, so far as possible, pos-sible, th, distribution of th, cards in s suit held In each hand around the table. Tiie opening lead usually sheds some light on this question. The play of the suits aa th, hand ia developed tenda to turn promises Into conclusions. conclu-sions. But thaw. ar. many situations in which th. distribution of a suit must b. assumed, and th, play of the hand based upon th, assumptions reached. If the assumptions are faulty, the result ia bound to be disastrous, as occurred in a recent match, for pos, session ol the city ot Asbury Pari challenge trophy, played by the team representing Crockford'a club, the members of which were Messrs. Theodore Theo-dore A. Lifhtner, Michael T. Gottlieb, Louis H. Watson and Oswald Jacoby, against a challenge team repreaent ing the Cavendish club, made up of Messrs. Waldemar von Zedtwits. Sherman Sher-man Stearns. Walter Malowan and John P. Mattheys. Th, first hand ol th, match was as follows: South Dealer. North-south vulnerable. out t? o 1 4 a 4S A Q 10 I I My. O-tllle Ms Uaksassy 1 1 1 I N-i4 jit (? All.l .- K I 0 W-E0KQJ ! of. I 4 S 1 S J i 1 a IK 11 C Q.J 10-a 4 . O ATI 1 4 K T . CULBEBTSON BOOKLET By special arrangement, readers of this newspaper may hav a free copy of The Rules and Ethics of Bridge, by Ely Culbertaon. Address Mr. Cul-bertson Cul-bertson In car of this newspaper, inclosing in-closing a stamped, self -addressed envelope. |