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Show Learn Bridge Etiquette and Ethics, Avoid Friction PETER POTTER 9th Week Novice and Nonexpert Bridge: Hand of the week: NORTH JlOx AQJ10 O xx AKQJ WEST EAST AQxxx 4 xx V xx O Kx O KQJx O lOxxxxx xx lOxx SOUTH Kxx C xxxxx O A xxxx North opens one club. East passes. South responds res-ponds one heart and West bids one spade. North jumps to three hearts and South goes to four. West led the diamond king. Declarer saw a lay-down lay-down unless the winners were ruffed, at trick two, she led the heart ace and continued the queen. East wins with the king but now trumps are in and West can only score the ace and queen of spades, with declarer making her bid. If declarer had taken the heart finesse, East would have returned a spade. West would take his two winners and defeat the contract by giving East a ruff. The safety play of the heart ace might cap-tue cap-tue a king singleton, holding hold-ing nine trumps. The hand as played was excellent planning. Ethics, Etiquette, Laws. If we always played bridge with the same small group, we could make up our own standard of conduct. Actually, we all play bridge with acquaintance ac-quaintance and strangers as well as with good friends. To help avoid friction is to stick to an accepted code of ethics, etiquette and a few laws in all bridge games. There is such a generally gen-erally accepted code. All good players know it. Most causal players (don't. As a result, the casual player finds himself him-self "in the soup" regardless regard-less of his intentions, i Even so, it doesn't hurt to know to act reasonably and with goodwill so no other reasonable person of goodwill can find fault with you. Someday, you might meet somebody unreasonable! un-reasonable! Certain good practices are traditional with bridge players - certain others are viewed with disfavor. Some of these are: You're supposed to wait until the dealer finishes fin-ishes dealing and begins to pick up his cards before be-fore you pick up yours. This gives the dealer as much time as anyone else to study his hand. Some "dummies" put trump "down before the opening lead. There's no law requiring the dummy to put his trumps down so if we have this habit, it's a good one to break, it gives the opening leader lead-er an undeserved advantage. advan-tage. When you are dummy, dum-my, please don't look at either opponent's hand and don't ask your partner part-ner to pass his hand across the table for whatever what-ever reason you devise. Players feel as if they are on trial. Of utmost thoughtful -ness, don't stand behind the declarer's chair while she plays the hand. Now no one will hate you if you take a fast peek at your partner's hand on your way to bring the goodies. In all other cases, sit still and try to look relaxed as though your partner were playing play-ing it exactly as you would. There is etiquette even for the "kibitzer". Sit behind one player and sit still. Don't look at one hand and then another. This could give the impression im-pression the first hand didn't interest you. The players need freedom from distraction, so don't talk during the play of the hand. Be the judge of what to say but be brief. While you're kibitzing, kib-itzing, as it were, you might as well sit behind the better player! Peter says: A one spade bid is the toughest for the opponents to bid over and it is hard for them to compete for a part score. Next week: Ethics, Etiquette, Et-iquette, Laws. |
