I thought I'd throw in some bridge history this month. We also have a larger panel than usual and some tough looking problems to discuss, so this article might be longer than usual. We better get started.

Harold Stirling Vanderbilt (1884 – 1970)

Does Harold look like a rich guy? He was a rich guy. One of his passions was cards, and this Time magazine cover shows his other passion: America's Cup racing.

In 1925, Harold Vanderbilt developed the scoring rules that changed Auction Bridge into Contract Bridge. In auction bridge, a game was scored no matter whether it was bid or not -- i.e., if you took 9 tricks in a notrump contract, bids of 1NT, 2NT, and 3NT all made game and produced the exact same score. The big change in contract bridge was that only the tricks you bid counted toward game and the others were just "overtricks." That made partnership bidding much more important, and the new game became popular.

Harold endowed the Vanderbilt Trophy for the winners of the Vanderbilt KO Teams at the ACBL Nationals and then won his own trophy twice in 1932 and 1940. Vanderbilt also invented the first forcing club bidding system. Simple stuff by today's standards, but it's the great-great grandfather of Precision, Blue Team Club, Roman Club and too many others to mention.

In 1969, the World Bridge Federation made Vanderbilt its first honorary member. When a Bridge Hall Of Fame was inaugurated in 1964, Vanderbilt was one of the first three persons elected.

Action	Score	Votes	% Solvers
Pass	100	12	57
5	80	7	23
4	50	0	20

1. IMPs, East-West Vulnerable

West	North	East	South
1	DBL	3*	Pass
4	DBL	Pass	?
* Weak

As South you hold:  KT43   864   42   T983

Double, Double, toil and trouble. What's partner up to with this second double? Penalty? Still takeout? Maybe just showing a generic strong hand?

BRIDGE BARON: "Pass. Brige Baron reads partner's second double as penalty."

DODD: "Pass. Overanalyzing perhaps, but maybe West ran here because of a spade void and is headed for -500 or worse, when we can't make anything. After all, West didn't open a gambling 3NT or a big preempt, and North didn't start with a 2NT to show a big heart-club two-suiter. At least that's what I'll tell my teammates when we bring back the inevitable -710."

MERRITT: "Pass. This must be a LAW bid. How can I bid 4 or 5 with nothing more than a marginally fitting hand?"

POKORNY: "Pass. If I believe RHO's bidding, partner has 1-2 spades. Therefore, he must have a strong 18+ hand (say, 2-4-3-4)."

WALKER: "Pass. It's true I have no defense, but I have no offense either. Partner is a heavy favorite to hold the big balanced hand, so he's not necessarily short in diamonds or long in clubs."

Other panelists detected a big club suit in partner's hand.

KNIEST: "5. They have at least a 10 card diamond fit and your one high card is not working on defense. Expect 3415 shape from him.

SPEAR: "5, I believe everyone, pard has 3-4-1-5 or 2-4-1-6 with a great hand, making 5."

BLUMENTHAL: "5. The king of spades might be a trick. Partner has to be prepared for a 5 bid."

BARNES: "5, I have no defensive trick and I expect clubs are 6-4 our way. I expect partner to be something like: Ax, AKxx, x, AQxxxx."

If Tom and Jack think their partner can have 3 spades then they really don't believe RHO's 3 bid. The suggested distributions, all including a singleton diamond, and the hand that Sandy gives are too perfect, and even then may be down in 5.

Scoring:
The panel rejected the 4 bid. The reason was that partner probably had only four hearts and might well have longer clubs.

Ely Culbertson (1891-1955)

Ely Culbertson was the showman of bridge. As contract bridge began to replace auction bridge, Culbertson saw an opportunity to become the leading personality of the new game. He was already a highly regarded player, but now he became a bidding theorist, a magazine editor, an organizer of events, and a team leader. And it worked! He did become the leading figure in contract bridge during its boom years of the 1930s.

Culbertson founded and edited The Bridge World magazine, and created the first "Master Solver's" articles, which are the great granddaddy of our District 8 Solver's Forum and a bunch more like it all over the country. He owned Kem Cards, the first firm of playing-card manufacturers to develop plastic cards. He developed and owned a chain of bridge schools with teachers qualified to teach, guess what, the Culbertson bidding system, which he called "The Official Bidding System.".

Culbertson was a brilliant publicist; his team played a number of famous challenge matches, all of which they won. Two matches were played in the USA -- against Sidney Lenz's team in 1931-32 and P. Hal Sims in 1935. Four matches were played in England -- against Walter Buller's team in 1930, two against 'Pops' Beasley's team in in 1930 and 1933, and lastly against Col. George Walshe's team in 1934.

These matches were extensively covered by the press, often making the front pages. They were on the radio, and even on cinema newsreels. By winning them, Culbertson suggested to the bridge-playing public that the Culbertson Official Bidding System was superior to the systems of his rivals, and so boosted the sales of his books.

Culbertson continued to play high-stakes rubber bridge for many years, but gave up tournament bridge in 1938 to write and work for world peace. Good for him!

He was a great showman who became rich, was highly extravagant, and lost and gained fortunes several times over. His autobiography, The Strange Lives of One Man, might be an interesting read.

Action	Score	Votes	% Solvers
2	100	6	28
3	90	5	23
Pass	80	5	28
2NT	60	1	5
3	60	1	3
3	60	1	12

2. Matchpoints, Both Vulnerable

West	North	East	South
--	--	2	Pass
Pass	DBL	Pass	?

As South you hold:  A54   8762  754   AK6

Another hand where our biscuits are burning. We have a wide range balancing double from partner and no suit to bid ourselves. If we pass they may make it, and if we don't want to pass, what do we bid?

RABIDEAU: "Pass. Don't know what to do, I'm hoping for enlightenment from the panel."

Enlightenment? The Dalai Lama might be a better choice, but we'll try the panel.

BARNES: "Pass . . . more like a matchpoint call, but there is no clear call here, and all of my cards point toward defense."

PAULO: "Pass. With three top tricks, and neither a suit nor a stopper, I defend."

WALKER: "Pass. Partner shouldn't be stretching too far to 'protect' me at IMPs, so I'm not going to risk playing in a silly 3-3 fit."

MATHENY: "2. It may be right to pass, but I don't want to punish partner for balancing."

KNIEST: "2. I'm not betting the farm at IMPs. Pard may be protecting in case I have good hearts. I don't."

MERRITT: "2. I love the quick tricks, but hate the shape. So I downgrade and just limp in."

PAVLICEK: "2. At matchpoints, best shot would be to pass, but at IMPs, the stakes are too high. Any aggressive move just begs to go minus, so I'll go low in a sensible strain."

POKORNY: "2. Partner could have 4-1-4-4 and 10 HCP, so it is better not to pass 2H doubled."

All true, but couldn't partner have 4-1-4-4 and 14 HCP? And do we want to play in a 3-4 spade fit that's likely to immediately be tapped in the long hand?

MR MOLLO: "3. I thought about pass, but I'm too chicken. Too many values to pick some 3-card suit and bid it at a minimum level. So I'll let partner choose something. Don't ask me what my follow up is!"

SPEAR:"3. Ugh! My plan is to bid 4 if pard bids 3, then pass the next bid and hope no one doubles."

3 shows the hand perfectly. Too bad it may already be too high! Shouldn't 3 show 5 cards and a minimum?

Scoring:
I dropped Pass down a notch since most of the panel, although they didn't know what they wanted to do, were pretty clear that they did not want to defend.

Helen Sobel (1910-1969)

Helen's bridge career began when she was a chorus girl in the stage show "Animal Crackers" with the Marx Brothers where another chorus girl taught her to play bridge. That other chorus girl must have done a good job because in 1934, Helen won the National Women's Pairs, and over the next 30 years won another 33 national championships.

You can generally say, "Helen Sobel was the first woman bridge player to _____" and then fill in the blank with anything. First to play in a world championship; first to win the McKenney trophy.

Her best and longest-lived partnership was with Charles Goren. A possibly apocraphal story goes that Helen was once asked by a newspaper reporter what it was like to partner a real expert. Her reply was, "I don't know, ask Charlie!"

Action	Score	Votes	% Solvers
DBL	100	10	35
3	80	4	27
3	60	2	18
4	60	2	15
Pass	50	1	0
4	40	0	3
4NT	40	0	2

3. Matchpoints, Neither Vulnerable

West	North	East	South
--	--	--	1
Pass	1	3	?

As South you hold:  Q65   AK3   J3   AKJ64

We need to collect a lot more info. Does partner have 5 spades? If not, does he have a diamond stopper?  If not, does he have club support? Could we even have a slam? How do we investigate?

POKORNY: "Double. Clear-cut negative double."

SPEAR: "Double. I like this to show 'good hand no convenient bid.' I hope my pard thinks something similar."

STRITE: "Double.  Hey, why make life easy for a bidding-panel partner who doesn't even exist? Over my double, I'm passing 3S, 3NT and 4C, but bidding 4S over 3H."

MR MOLLO: "Double. I like to play that double is takeout with extra values. This does seem to be appropriate! No one plays this as penalty, do they?"

KLEMIC: "Double. Extra values, not necessarily pure penalty. I already went for -710 and -670 in the first two problems. Thought I'd add -470 to the mix!"

George isn't a panelist this month, but I couldn''t resist adding that answer! BTW, in Bridge World Standard, the system we're supposed to be playing, the double is penalty. So what other choices do we have?

LAMBERT: "3 Keeps notrump, spades and clubs in the picture -- forcing, while describing my hand further."

RABIDEAU: "3. Please, partner, bid spades or notrump!"

NELSON: "3. This is forcing. I will find out if partner has at least a 5-card spade suit with my reverse. I will not raise with only three spades at this point."

BLUMENTHAL: "3. Occasionally, one should be allowed to have one's bid. I think 3H is an overstatement and will get us to 3NT when 4S might be right."

PAVLICEK: "3 Aren't these problems a little early for Hallowe'en? Double (penalty) would be my second choice, but it seems odds-against with partner apt to have long spades or a club fit."

Victor Mollo (1909-1987)

The best players of many sports and games are often excruciatingly serious. PGA golfers walking down the fairway after their drives sometimes look like Death Row inmates walking to the execution chamber. Of course, that kind of concentration is what you need to get to the top, but still . . .

Bridge in the Menagerie changed all that. Well, no it didn't, but maybe it helped a bit. It began as articles in The Bridge World and the English Bridge Magazine and in 1965 was published as a book. Mollo found humor where other writers had only found squeezes and endplays. He looked at people from his club and saw rabbits and owls and chimps. The most popular character of the series, The Hideous Hog, even leaked back into real life. If one bridge player describes another as being a Hideous Hog, the meaning will be taken.

Victor had an interesting lifestyle. He played rubber bridge at his club in the afternoon, had dinner with his wife (The Squirrel), worked all night, and then slept in the morning. He occasionally played in the major tournaments and won four national titles, but in the end he preferred rubber bridge.

Action	Score	Votes	% Solvers
2	100	10	25
2	80	4	18
2NT	80	4	28
Pass	50	1	22
2	50	0

4. Matchpoints, Neither Vulnerable

West	North	East	South
1	2	Pass	?

As South you hold:  AQT4    KQT2   T652   6

We have both majors and a diamond stopper. It seems that we can show one or the other but not both. Maybe the panel has an idea.

STRITE: "2. We'll find out whether partner thinks this guarantees a fit. I don't think so when pard's suit is a minor."

PAVLICEK: "2. Seems routine; a one-round force as I play (not promising a fit), hoping partner can bid a major. If not, I'll pass 3C -- or raise 2NT to 3NT by virtue of my 10-spots."

PAULO: "2. Partner will assume good support, but he will bid a major if possible."

I kind of admire Manuel's answer. Even though 2 doesn't show his hand, he hopes it will work out anyway. So what's the story with 2 anyway?

DODD: "2. Nothing else is inviting, and a cuebid is silly since in BWS it promises either a fit or a suit of my own, which I will rebid at the next opportunity. 2NT is just sick."

KNIEST: "2. 2 will elicit 2NT with a stopper. However, partner may fit hearts or bid spades with a two-suited hand, which will put us on our feet . . . for a minute, until he hems and haws over my raise because he was showing a stopper, looking for a diamond stopper from me."

I checked and DODD is right. Yuck, what a bad definition BWS has for that bid. I was also wondering how the auction was supposed to continue after the BWS cuebid. KNIEST explained that; it continues badly. And now, speaking for the sickos DODD mentioned:

WALKER: "2NT. I'd like to have more than this 'quarter stopper', but 2NT is a good description of these values, and it won't land us in a silly 4-2 fit."

LAMBERT: "2NT. Passing can't be right at matchpoints, so I'm stuck between a 2 overbid, or a 2NT tour de force."

Wait a minute, we're saying that 2NT is a bike race?

Scoring:
I hate giving the top score to a non-systemic bid, but "rules is rules." Wait a minute, I just said that on the last hand!

The pictures for the other hands are all individuals, but this one can't be. This is the Blue Team, the Squadra Azzurra, vintage 1968. It was this team, give or take, that represented Italy in international bridge tournaments, winning 16 world titles from 1957 through 1975. Wow! That's a better record than any other team in any other game or sport. The only team that compares is The Boston Celtics with Bill Russell, who won eleven NBA championships during almost the exact same time period, 1957 to 1969. Curious.

Before the Blue Team, world championships were considered by the USA (and other countries) to be USA against the world. After all, the USA had invented Contract Bridge and had, by far, the largest number of players and the most tournaments. All they had to do to win was run a qualifying tournament, take the top six players, bolt them together into three partnerships, and send them out to conquer the world.

That worked for a long time! When Italy won the Championship in 1957, the USA thought it was just bad luck. When they won it again in 1958 and 1959, they thought it was just a fluke, but after The Blue Team had won 12 of first 13 years it played, the USA had to consider that they might be doing something right. What could it be? How about working on partnerships, developing better bidding systems, learning them, and doing a lot of practicing.

The Blue Team opened up bridge to the world and gave the USA the kick in the butt that it sorely needed. Serious teams like The Dallas Aces developed and the USA started picking pairs -- and even teams -- as its representatives instead of individuals as it had done before. Bridge was now truly a worldwide game, and the World Championships were truly team events instead of just being collections of talented individuals.

Action	Score	Votes	% Solvers
Pass	100	15	53
2	70	1	5
2	60	2	33
2	50	1	7
2	50	0	2

5. Matchpoints, EW Vulnerable

West	North	East	South
--	--	1	Pass
1	Pass	1NT	Pass
Pass	DBL	Pass	?

As South you hold:  Q963   742  Q974   QT

What's your bid?

Most of the panel thought this should be a lead problem instead of a bidding problem, and even then, they knew what to lead.

MR MOLLO: "Pass. I lead a low spade. Partner has shown an opening hand with good spades. I have nowhere to go."

KNIEST: "Pass. I lead a spade; crazy to bid. If you put a gun to my head, I'd bid 2S."

BLUMENTHAL: "Pass. I can lead a spade."

MATHENY: "Pass. Partner must have something more than hearts and clubs to bid now in this no-fit auction. It must be spades."

NELSON: "Pass. I am passing and leading a spade. This auction sounds like partner has the spade suit."

PAVLICEK: "Pass. I won't lose faith in partner over a suspicious spade holding. His double is clearly penalty oriented (spade strength) as I play, and the spades are probably 4-4-4-1. My diamonds also suggest defending, so I hope to table the Q soon."

DODD: "Pass. This must be the Consolation and North is punishing me for my 2 call on Problem 3."

Yes, this is definitely the Consolation. To add on to Klemic's answer, so far in five hands we've had a -710, a -670, a -470, and now we may be about to have a -180. Where else would we be but the consolation?

Pass was the big winner on this hand, but there's one bid that could be better.

BARNES: "2 ."

Every one knew they had a 4-4 spade fit, but only Sandy was up to bidding it. I would think that declaring a hand with a 4-1 trump break would be easier if you knew about it in advance.

BRIDGE BARON: "2. Taking out the takeout double. At least we'll have a 4-3 fit."

Could be a little bug in BB here. The panel is not assuming that the double is takeout.

I boosted the score for 2 up a bit since it was just a different take on the same idea that the passers had.

Charles Goren (1901 – 1991)

So what did this guy ever do? Was he a candidate for best player of all time? No, he was a good player, but not in the league of most of the guys in Problem 5. Was he a brilliant bridge theorist? Well . . . not really. You may notice that while you're playing a convention called Stayman and a convention called Blackwood and maybe a couple that start with Jacoby, there isn't a "Goren" convention.

But there is something more important than any convention that Goren popularized: the Goren Point Count. Before that, the hand evaluation method was honor tricks; Goren advanced the 4-3-2-1 point-count and added on points for singletons and voids. That may have been the biggest single contribution to bridge in its 80-odd year history. Honor tricks were complicated, but everyone could use the Goren point count!

His major contribution to bridge was that he made it popular and available to the average person. In 1936, he wrote Winning Bridge Made Easy, which was a straightforward system -- not many conventions and natural bidding. Bridge players loved it . . . and they loved Charlie. His daily bridge column appeared in 194 American newspapers, he had a monthly column in Sports Illustrated, and when television came along, Charlie came along with it. His show, "Championship Bridge with Charles Goren", ran from 1959 to 1964.

Of course, Goren won bunches of tournaments, plus eight McKenney Trophies and one Bermuda Bowl, but his legacy is that if you stop a random person on the street and ask them to name a famous bridge player, they might only be able to name one, but guess which one it would be!

Action	Score	Votes	% Solvers
4	100	9	35
3	90	7	16
4	60	2	18
4NT	50	1	13
3	50	0	8
5	50	0	5
5	50	0	2
6	50	0	2
4	50	0	2

6. Matchpoints, NS Vulnerable

West	North	East	South
--	1	Pass	2
Pass	2	Pass	2
Pass	3	Pass	?

 As South you hold:    AJT   Q4   AQ9765   95

Let's see, is 3 a support bid or a cuebid in support of spades? And if we now bid 3' is that confirming spade support or is it a cuebid in support of diamonds? Each panelist knew what those bids meant. Too bad they didn't all know the same thing.

MERRITT: "3. My hand is looking prime for a diamond slam, so I want to hear more from partner. While this isn't clearly a cuebid yet, it should drag out more information."

MR MOLLO: "3. I assume we are in a 100% game force. I might have been taking a preference the round before. I want to let partner know I have real support."

I don't know if "taking a preference" applies to 2/1 auctions, but you might have been temporizing because you didn't have a club stopper.

I'm not sure we allow button pushing here on the Solvers Forum   :-(

BRIDGE BARON: "4. Also the bid Bridge Baron would have made on the previous round."

POKORNY: "4. I have a minimal hand for my previous bids, I should have bid 4S instead of 2S on my last turn."

BB and Dean bring up a good point. In 2/1 systems, the way to bid minimum opening hands with support and a side suit is to bid the side suit and then jump to game in partner's suit, after which we can relax and let partner take over. But having not done that, the situation has changed and we may be too good to do it now.

STRITE: "4NT. I'd better surreptitiously check page 36 of the partnership notes to remind myself if we use 6-card Roman Keycard here. Since I can't count to six, and none of my partners has ever read a book over 18 pages, the best I can do is decide which king is less important. Since I might get heart pitches for my JT of spades, I'm bidding Roman Keycard now for diamonds."

But is it for diamonds? I seem to remember playing that if we raised a major, that was always the key suit for Roman Keycard Blackwood regardless of the rest of the auction. But did this auction really constitute a "raise"?

The 4 bidders are trying to get partner to take over the slam bidding and choice-of-games decisions.

LAMBERT: "4. I want to tell pard I have long diamonds and spade support. If we need to ask about controls to find a slam, I'm not the one that should be doing the asking."

BLUMENTHAL: "4. 4 could be better than 5. Partner can make a decision knowing that I have no club control."

PAVLICEK: "4. I like my hand and want to emphasize diamonds -- e.g.,  Kxxxx  AKxx  Kxx  x  is a great 6D but poor 6S. If partner has my example hand, he will be enlightened to Blackwood into 6D."

Thanks to all who sent in answers to this interesting set of problems. Congratulations to our three (four) top Solvers -- Judy Eaton of Carbondale IL, Harold & Carol Emme of Plainfield IL and Paul Holmes of Champaign IL -- who each scored an impressive 570. They're invited to join the October panel.

How the Panel voted  (Panel/Staff Avg.: 534):	1	2	3	4	5	6	Score
Sandy Barnes, Wildomar CA	5	Pass	4	2	2	4	490
Kate Blumenthal, Madison WI	5	2	3	2	Pass	4	540
Bridge Baron, Core Memory	Pass	2NT	Pass	Pass	2	4	400
Glafkos Galanos, Carbondale. IL	5	3	DBL	2	Pass	3	560
Tom Kniest, University City MO	5	2	DBL	2	Pass	4	560
Robert Lambert, Warsaw IN	Pass	Pass	3	2NT	Pass	4	540
Larry Matheny, Loveland CO	5	2	DBL	2	Pass	4	580
Mr Mollo (AKA Peg Kaplan), Minnetonka MN	Pass	3	DBL	2	Pass	3	560
Bev Nelson, Fort Myers FL	Pass	3	3	2	Pass	3	530
Dean Pokorny, Zagreb Croatia	Pass	2	DBL	2	Pass	4	560
Manuel Paulo, Lisbon, Portugal	Pass	Pass	DBL	2	Pass	4	580
Richard Pavlicek, Fort Lauderdale FL	Pass	2	3	2	Pass	4	560
Larry Rabideau, St. Anne IL	Pass	Pass	3	2NT	2	4	490
Jack Spear, Kansas City, KS	5	3	DBL	2NT	Pass	3	540
Toby Strite, San Jose CA	5	3	DBL	2	2	4NT	450
How the Staff voted
Tom Dodd, Branchburg NJ	Pass	3	DBL	2	Pass	4	570
Kent Feiler, Harvard IL	Pass	3	3	2	Pass	3	560
Scott Merritt, Abuja, Nigeria	Pass	2	4	2	Pass	3	530
Karen Walker, Champaign IL	Pass	Pass	DBL	2NT	Pass	3	550
Solvers Honor Roll
Judy Eaton, Carbondale IL	Pass	Pass	DBL	2	Pass	3	570
Harold and Carol Emme, Plainfield IL	5	3	DBL	2	Pass	4	570
Paul Holmes, Champaign IL	Pass	Pass	DBL	2	Pass	3	570
James Sweatt, Metropolis IL	Pass	Pass	DBL	2	Pass	4	560
Vlastimil Lev, Prague, Czech Republic	Pass	2	4	2	Pass	4	560
Bill Walsh, Champaign IL	Pass	3	DBL	2	Pass	3	560
George Klemic, Bensenville IL	Pass	Pass	DBL	2	Pass	3	550
Zoran Bohacek, Zagreb, Croatia	Pass	Pass	DBL	2	Pass	4	540
Bob Carteaux, Fort Wayne IN	Pass	2	DBL	2NT	2	4	540
Bud Hinckley, South Bend IN	Pass	2NT	3	2	Pass	4	540
Dan Baker, Urbana IL	5	2	3	2	Pass	4	540
Paul Soper, Sierra Vista AZ	5	3	DBL	2	Pass	4	540