Foster's pirate bridge; the latest development of auction bridge, with the full code of the official laws

Front matter

AresT

•LOPMENT OF

[ON BRIDGE iSTER.

Preface

The following pages are intended to set before the reader a complete description and exposition of the latest candidate for public favor in the realm of cards, without assuming on the reader's part any previous knowledge of similar games, although it is naturally expected that the largest appeal will be to those who are already famihar with auction bridge.

The author has endeavored to explain the logic of the bidding as clearly as possible, illustrating the more interesting situations by hands from actual play. The system herein explained is not, of course, final, as time and experience will undoubtedly suggest many improvements and refinements as the game passes through the purifying process of expert play.

Any hints, suggestions, or criticisms from those who try out the new game with players of varying abilities, will be greatly appreciated by the author.

R. F. Foster.

vu

Contents

PAGE

Preface ....... vii

Historical

I

Introduction

Description of the Game

The Players .

The Deal

Object of the Game

The Trick Values .

Honor Scores

Slams and Bonuses

Penalties

The Bidding .

Overcalling .

Rank of the Bids .

The Play

Scoring

Pirate Bridge Score-pad

IX

X CONTENTS

PACK

Settling ...... 29

Average Rubber Values .

Bidding Tactics .

Free and Forced Bids

. 36

Major and Minor Suits

Minor Suits .

Major Suits .

► 39

The Foundation

Sure Tricks .

Compensating Tricks

No-trumpers

What Are No-trumpers?

Whitehead's Rule .

Equal Suits .

One-trick Bids

. 52

Two-trick Bids

. 55

Accepting .

. 59

When to Accept

Errors in Accepting

■ 64

Accepting Minor Suits

. 69

Accepting Major Suits

. 73

Accepting Two- trick Bids

7^

Delayed Bids

CONTENTS

xi

PAGE

Refusing to Accept 82

Rebidding the Hand .

Secondary Bids .

Position in Bidding .

Doubling ....

Taking Stings .

The Nullo

Playing Nullos

Playing the Hands .

Selecting the Suit .

Selecting the Card .

Secondary Leads

The Partner

The Trump Echo .

The No-trump Echo

The Eleven Rule .

. 132

The Discard

The Reverse Discard

. 141

Second Hand Play

. 142

Returning Suits

The Declarer's Play.

Elimination .

Trump Play .

xii CONTENTS

PAGB

Playing No-trumpers . . . .157

Reentries

Finessing .

Ducking

. 164

Postponed Finesses

. 165

Dummy's Position

Laws of Pirate Bridge

Forming Tables

Cutting and Dealing

The Declarations .

^77

The Play

Errors in Play

Exposed Cards

The Revoke .

Dummy

Scoring .

HISTORICAL

The first place in the aristocracy of card games has now been in undisputed possession of some member of the whist family for more than two hundred years. This family embraces all the games that are played with the full pack of fifty-two cards, one suit being the trump, and the score being counted by tricks and honors.

The progenitor of the family seems to have been a game called ruff-and-honors, which was played with only twelve cards of each suit. About 1680 we find that swabbers had taken the place of the earlier game, and shortly afterward the deuces were restored to the pack, and whist was born. c

Whist was introduced to the world in 1674, by Charles Cotton, in his Compleat Gamester, and enlarged upon in The Court Gamester, by Richard Seymour, in 17 19, after which came Edmund Hoyle, with his famous treatise on Short Whist, in 1742.

From that time until the invention of duplicate whist, in 1890, the old-fashioned rubber was the king of card games. In the United States, duplicate held its place in public favor until about 1897, when it began to wane after the publication of the laws of bridge by The Whist Club of New York.

Just where bridge originated has never been clearly settled. It seems to be a combination of several other games, notably geralasch, Siberia, and preference, and a game closely resembling bridge has been popular in Holland for many years. The name was originally "biritch" supposed to be Russian, but there is no such word in Russian that has any meaning. As biritch came to us from the East, and is said to' have been popular in Constantinople, Smyrna, and Southeastern Europe long before English-speaking people heard of it, the name may be a corruption.

Bridge was brought to the United States by H. I. Barbey, in 1893, and was first explained to the members of what is now The Whist Club of New York. For a long time it did not attract any attention from card players at large, but by 1897 the publication of the first code of official laws clarified it, and in a remarkably short space of time it had entirely superseded duplicate whist.

For nearly fifteen years bridge held the center of the stage, when one day John Doe returned from a hill station in India with an idea that the game would be improved if the dealer had not such a monopoly of the makes, his plan being to let each player in turn state what he thought should be the trump, putting the privilege of playing the dummy up at auction.

Auction bridge introduced the first great change in the manner of scoring, as it restricted the possibiHty of winning the game to the side that made the highest bid. The opponents could score penalties, but they could never win a rubber unless they got the dummy.

During these changes from whist to bridge and bridge to auction as it is played to-day, a number of changes were made in the rank and value of the suits, points being added for winning rubbers and slams, and penalties for irregularities in play were paid for in points. The laws are, unfortunately, the only part of the game that has not been thoroughly overhauled, and the code now in use in the principal card clubs in the country is simply a patched up reproduction of the one first issued by the Portland Club, in London, away back in 1 85 1, for the game of whist, and published by "Calebs.'*

Even after all these changes in the game, each of which has been hailed as the perfect game of cards, good judges have been well aware that auction was far from perfect as a scientific game or an intellectual pastime, although each was an undoubted improvement on its predecessor. No bridge player would go back to whist, neither would any auction player return to bridge; but auction, even in its most highly developed state, has many serious defects.

It remained for Aleister Crowley, an English writer and traveler, who, like John Doe, had spent much time in India, to go a step further than Doe. The idea of auction bridge was to distribute the privilege of making the trump, giving every one at the table a chance. Crowley's idea was to distribute the privilege of picking the partner who could best support that trump, or who could offer the best defense against it. Instead of having all partnerships decided by their accidental position at the table, his plan was to have the partners select each other by a sort of proposal and acceptance according to the suitability of their joint hands.

He laid the matter before Frank Crowninshield, the editor of Vanity Fair, in New York, who at once saw its possibilities, christened it " pirate bridge," and undertook to introduce it to the world through a series of articles beginning in the January number, 191 7, after the game had been worked over, rounded out, and polished up by the experience gained during the course of several experimental rubbers, all of which were private, and formed the foundation for the laws.

Pirate bridge was first brought to the attention of some members of the Knickerbocker Whist Club in New York, on November 3, 19 16. Those who took part in the first public rubber of pirate bridge ever played were; E. T. McLaughlin, C. W. Burkhart, G. M. Scott, E. T. Baker, and the writer, Messrs. Crowley and Crowninshield being interested spectators. A few days later four ladies, members of various card clubs, played six rubbers in two hours, Mrs. F. A. Irish, Mrs. T. M. Clarke, Mrs. C. W. Stewart, and Mrs. R. F. Foster.

During the weeks that followed, the game was tried out in various companies, with all classes of players, both men and women and everywhere met with an enthusiastic reception. Informal talks were given at the leading clubs, and many useful points were picked up, thanks to the suggestions and advice of a number of experts at auction who took an immediate interest in the new eame.