The difference between money bridge and tournament bridge by Eddie Kantar

Many players ask what is the real difference between money bridge and tournament bridge? Maybe this true story will answer that question.

Many years ago when I was 17 years old (misspent youth?) playing at the Ardmore Bridge Club in Los Angeles, they had tournament bridge downstairs and rubber bridge, or money bridge, upstairs. I played in both because I didn't tell them my real age so I could play for $$$.

Neither group was particularly fond of the other and when the rubber bridge players made their way upstairs they looked neither left nor right at what they considered a lower form of life, the tournament player. They argued if these people thought they were so good, why didn't they come upstairs and play for money?

The tournament players, on the other hand, felt contaminated in the presence of rubber bridge, players and would only go upstairs because the restrooms were there. They argued that if these rubber bridge
players thought they were such hot shots, why didn't they come downstairs and play a game of skill, not one that depended upon who was dealt the most aces and kings.

And so it came to pass that one afternoon after the duplicate game ended there was the usual mass exodus upstairs. Included in this exodus was the reigning queen of duplicate bridge in Los Angeles at that time, Malvine Klausner. Her husband, Sigfried, had invented Kem Cards.

When she finally made it to the Ladies room she found a full house, so she headed next door to the Men's room! When she emerged, her friends were aghast. Malvine, do you know where you were?

Yes, I know where I was.

Well, was there anybody else in there?

Well, there were a few guys in there, but they were only rubber bridge players.

_________________________

Welcome, Eddie Kantar, to Bridgetoday.com! Eddie, America's favorite (and funniest) bridge writer will be offering a new weekly Kantar's Korner, every Thursday on Bridgetoday.com. Come and enjoy, it's free!

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The Joys of Web Publishing by Matthew Granovetter (and Larry Cohen)

When you edit a bridge magazine, which I have done for 15 years, you make lots of mistakes. Even after numerous proof-readings, there are errors, because it's nearly impossible to avoid them. There are 52 different cards on every hand, and the minute you change a card, to fix the previous mistake, you then have to change the text to match the diagram. Sometimes a bridge editor, in the interest of making a bridge hand more presentable to the readers, will rotate the four hands, for example, taking the West cards and moving them to North, North to East, East to South and South to West. This would be done typically when I want declarer to be in the South seat, but at the table in real life declarer was sitting East.

After this maneuver, however, you also have to change the auction and the players' seats and the vulnerability and the dealer, and soon you go a little crazy. But after another few proofreads, you hope (pray) you have it right.

In the old days of publishing, you sent your final product to the printer and he sent back a last-minute proof, and you were so tired of reading the piece so many times already, you didn't check that carefully, but you checked a little bit and sent in additional corrections. Then it went to press and it was a done deal. You couldn't do anything more about it, and when it arrived in your mail-box, and there was a glaring error, you could only decide whether to mention the error in the next issue (or hope all the readers will have forgotten it by then).

In today's world, however, corrections can be made to Bridge Today Magazine within seconds, and everyone who wants to can get a new copy of the magazine by making a fresh download! What joy! We can rewrite an entire column or simply add a period and replace the old e-magazine with a corrected version. Last week it happened, after I had the following conversation by email with Larry Cohen, of Florida. Larry was featured in the April issue of Bridge Today Magazine for having won the National Open Pairs with David Berkowitz at the Spring Nationals. Here is our conversation:

From: Larry Cohen [mailto:l@larryco.com]
Sent: Thursday, April 22, 2004 10:42 PM
To: Granovetter Matt
Subject: April corrections

Hi Matthew --
Good job with the on-line format of Bridge Today Magazine.

One correction. In the April issue, both Berkowitz-Cohen hands are backwards. That is, Larry is David and David is Larry on both. So, if you use them again, please reverse the names.

From: "BridgeToday.com" <mgranovetter@bridgetoday.com>
To: "Larry Cohen" <l@larryco.com>
Sent: Friday, April 23, 2004 7:53 AM
Subject: New April Bridge Today

Larry,
Thanks for corrections. In on-line publishing, we aim to please! I have attached the corrected magazine and it will also replace the old one (yesterday's!) on the Bridgetoday.com website on the Magazine page.

Now you just can't do that when you print and snail mail your magazines!

All the best,
Matthew

From: Larry Cohen [mailto:l@larryco.com]
Sent: Friday, April 23, 2004 09:17 AM
To: Granovetter Matt
Subject: April corrections

Well corrected - nice to be able to do that. But I presume most subscribers already read and downloaded the incorrect version. You don't send out a notification, I presume, when corrections are made.

From: "BridgeToday.com" <mgranovetter@bridgetoday.com>
To: "Larry Cohen" <l@larryco.com>
Sent: Friday, April 23, 2004 10:06 AM
Subject: Re: corrected

Larry,
Good idea. I don't think it warrants a notice to all our subscribers (don't like to pester them), but I will make a little newsy report of this and put it on the home page next week, telling people about the joys of web publishing, and notifying the readers at the same time.

Best,
Matthew

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Who Deals the Cards? by Pamela Granovetter (Kabbalah and Bridge)

According to the Kabbalah, everything, absolutely everything, even a leaf rustling in the wind, is the result of Divine Intention. Mankind has free-will only when it comes to making a choice between doing (or at least desiring to do) good or not-so-good. The way the Jewish Sages express this concept is, Everything is in the hands of Heaven except Fear of Heaven.

In sports and games (as in so much of life), Divine Intention is often referred to as luck. Good luck occurs when you don't deserve to win on your own merits, but you (or your side if it's a team sport) win anyway, due to a fortuitous situation that arises, or perhaps because the other side makes more (or worse) blunders than your side. Of course, the luck is really none other than our friend, Divine Intention, disguised as a naturally good [or bad] break.

As we bridge players know, in the game of bridge, the cards are dealt out randomly and the 13 cards that each player holds is a matter of predestiny. The job of each player is to make the best of the situation he's been, well, dealt. It often happens that the bridge players will make the same bids and plays with a variety of hands that fall into certain broad categories. Therefore, if you would give four players a deal, and then take back the hands, exchange a card here or a card there, and then pass out the hands again, the players might easily make precisely the same bids and plays they made with the slightly different original layout. However, if one little spot card is in the East hand instead of the West hand, for example, the bidding and play remain the same but the result can be radically different!

Let me give you a dramatic illustration of this:

This past fall in Monte Carlo, the final match of the world team championships between teams from Italy and the United States was decided by the smallest possible margin. After 128 bridge hands, one trick decided the difference, with the USA winning. On the very last hand, an incident occurred that the world of bridge is still buzzing about.

The Italian declarer, Lorenzo Lauria, reached to play a card from the dummy and played the wrong card because he didn't see which card his opponent had played. According to the rules, once a card is touched it is played. The incident was exacerbated by the fact that the other player for Italy, who was dummy, and who was supposed to sit there and play the cards that his partner directed, was too excited to sit still; it was the last hand of a 14-day tournament and he wanted to see how his teammates had done, so he dashed out of the room after putting his cards on the table, leaving his partner to reach for the cards himself.

What a scenario! What (or, more precisely, Who!) could have induced both players to be so careless at such a crucial moment? Not only that, but look closely at the end-position:

	North Dummy K Q 9 8 7
West Soloway A 6 5 4 3		East Hamman J 10
	South Lauria 2

At one point in the middle of the hand, Lauria, sitting South, played the king of spades from dummy. East, Bob Hamman for the USA, played the jack, his higher card, to show an even number of spades. West, Paul Soloway, won the trick with the ace and led the 4 of spades to the next trick. Lauria could win the trick by playing the queen (this would tie the score, sending the world championships into overtime). But Lauria didn't notice that the 4 of spades was led, because he was expecting Soloway to lead a heart, and perhaps because he was playing both his own cards and dummy's and, therefore, wasn't focusing clearly on Soloway's card. In any case, he thought that Soloway had led a heart! Because dummy was out of hearts, the South player's intention was to discard a spade on this trick, so he leaned over and pulled the 7 of spades. Hamman played his ten of spades, the only spade left in his hand, and Lauria suddenly saw what he had done. He wanted to take back his play of the 7 and play the queen from dummy instead. The tournament director was called and he ruled that he could not take back his play.

Notice that West held four small spades in the end-position and East held one (the ten). Even though South made the error of playing the 7 from dummy, he would have survived his mistake if East had held one of West's small cards instead of the ten, because the 7 would win the trick.
The odds were 4-to-1 against East holding that ten! Who put that 10 of spades there in the East hand, which decided the world championship?

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Bridge is the most diverting and intelligent card game that the wit of man has so far devised

I would have children taught it as a matter of course, just as they are taught dancing; in the end it will be more useful to them, for you cannot with seemliness continue to dance when you are bald and potbellied; nor, for that matter, can you with satisfaction to yourself or pleasure to your partner continue to play tennis or golf when you are well past middle age. But you can play bridge so long as you can sit up at a table and tell one card from another. In fact, when all else fails - sport, love, ambition - bridge remains a solace and an entertainment.

W. Somerset Maugham

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