Canadian Master Point July 1995 .. Free Download
It’s that time again. There is another free download of Canadian Master Point available from www.ebooksbridge.com.
Have you ever read the short story?
An Occurrence At Owl Creel Bridge by Ambrose Bierce
I remember reading this in high school and it left quite an impression. I have never forgotten it. The story starts with a man about to be hanged. I recommend it to you and after that go write to David Silver’s excellent story based on it: An Occurrence at the Spingold. Professor Silver demonstrates some remarkable dummy play or does he?
Marilyn White writes a fascinating article on active ethics. This is a topic that has bothered me for some time. What is active ethics? What responsibilities do you have to yourself, your partner and your teammates and what responsibility do you have to being fair. This is different than cheating. This is how you act within the rules. You may recall a blog I wrote about refusing to dump in the Canadian trials. I have done this twice now and lost both times in later matches to the team I could have eliminated. Was I right or wrong? (These have always been team decisions, not mine alone). Marilyn suggests that women and men approach this whole area in a different way.
Roselyn Teukolsky talks about how she and her favorite partner and husband added a few gismos to their bidding arsenal (and some results of this effort).
You will enjoy reading about Fred Gitelman’s efforts in the Canadian team trials which his team won giving them the opportunity to play in the Athens Olympiad in 1996.
There is an interesting article by Ken-Braithwaite on Sharples-Marx over partner’s 1NT opening. It still looks quite sensible to me and 15 or so years later all of us are more prepared to use a lot of system. (My notes always seem to have three digits worth of pages these days).
If you are a follower of Canadian Master Point you might already be familiar with Colbert’s rules. Dave Colbert is a fine player and for years he played with Mike Cafferata. Here Mike rights an interest corollary to one of Colbert’s rules.
John Gowdy has an update to Drury, he calls Drury 90’s style. Looking at it I think it has lots of merit and might be worthwhile for partner’s who don’t want to play Drury, Linda style.
There are several other bidding articles.… there seem to have been lots of that this issue…including one called Baby Keycard and lots more (even some book reviews by moi).
Subscribe to our feed
Bridge-related
Linda:
What an all-inclusive and interesting blog! However, I cringe (as I’m sure did you) at the prospect of ‘dumping.’ To me, it is the lowest form of bridge ethics and in my eyes, should be punishable by expulsion. I can’t imagine not giving 100% of myself — regardless of the consequences! Perhaps it is a credo I learned from my parents but it has stuck with me all my life. My results might not have always been as hoped for, but I never faltered or wavered in my attempts. I am far from a goody two-shoes (a term we used as kids), but I have always striven to do what I considered the right thing. To me, IN THE CITED CASE, THERE IS LITTLE DOUBT THAT THE SPIRIT OF COMPETITION SHOULD BE AT THE TOP OF THE LADDER AND NEVER BE COMPROMISED BY ANY PERSON, PAIR OR TEAM FOR ANY REASON!
As far as ‘active ethics,’ I think of it as bending over backwards not to give gratuitous information to the opponents that could confuse them, but at the same time making sure they are aware (especially if inexperienced) as to what a bid, which in standard bidding means one thing, but in your partnership takes on a different twist. My theory is — what you know about your system — your opponents are entitled to know as well. Very simple.
Keep up these thought provoking blogs!
Hi Linda,
At the risk of meddling, I would like to add a few thoughts in defining Active Ethics, particularly as applied to our great game.
Bridge, although highly competitive, being both a fierce mental exercise and, of course, a partnership game, by necessity has to have different rules to govern it. As an example, our rulebook specifically states that our rules are not designed to prevent cheating or even deal with it, since it is outside what is demanded of the players and instead will be totally ignored, but implied that this kind of ghastly violation will be dealt with, upon conviction, by permanent expulsion.
It then follows that there are many situations which cannot be dealt with by specific laws, but rather by the spirit of the game philosophies and other positive psychological factors. For example, and while playing the popular 1NT forcing to an opening 1 of a major suit by partner, if, after passing and hearing partner open 1 heart in 3d seat then responding 1NT and having that passed out (in the absence of an alert by partner, and while awaiting an opening lead by LHO), it can only be ethical to announce a failure to alert the partnership understanding of being able to hold 4 spades and still respond 1NT, if the NTer held 4 decent or better spades.
Is the above written in our laws or anywhere? No, but it is the Actively Ethical thing to do and to announce that understanding (after partner forgets to and only holding 2 or 3 little spades), although interpreted as legal is, in fact, Actively Deceitful not Actively Ethical. For anyone to ask why, is an insult to every ethical player’s intelligence. When Linda suggests that some think that perhaps men and women hold different perspectives on this subject and though while not further discussed, implies that men may act according to the specific bridge law, while doing it the man’s self-serving way, should be considered by the game itself, unethical.
Let me assure you that if the above is true, and I think it is at least very close to true, the secret feelings women have, is what our game should be all about.
It is one thing to try and interpret our tax laws to one’s own advantage but, if so, and obviously almost everyone would agree to do just that, it is a completely different story in dealing with competitive bridge, since in a broad sense, interpreting the tax laws have no real human victims, while bridge always does, including in some cases, innocent victims of the shenanigans indulged in by winners playing at another table.
Summing up:
1. Bridge is a very different type competitive game which demands ethical decisions which are too varied to be codified.
2. Bridge, and especially the high-level fiercely competitive game, has to be governed by unwritten ethical laws which need to be consistently practiced by all who attempt to play it.
3. Perhaps the closest inviolate rule which needs to be practiced is similar to the Golden Rule of life, e.g. “Do unto the opponents what you would want them to do for you!” Certainly not the opposite of “Alls fair in love and war”, which when one thinks about it, would be best served for those two diverse events to also follow the behavior we seek in bridge.
4. There will be many opposite opinions to the above. At least to me, those in the other camp could be likened to a convention of foxes meeting to discuss the new hen house in town.