I want to leave serious bridge and tell you a couple of recent humorous incidents. The first took place in one of the open duplicate games at Asbury Park. N. J. Since these opening games have no bearing on the national championships whatsoever, most players enter them purely for amusement, although occasionally one finds a player who is having fun opposed to a serious pair.
In this instance the serious players reached a contract of four spades, whereupon an opponent looked over his hand carefully and said, «I bid four grapes.»
The next man asked. «What did you bid?» and the reply was. «Four grapes.»
«What does that mean?» «If you want an explanation, call the tournament director.»
The tournament director was called and he too asked what had been bid. «Four grapes.» «you can’t do that,» said the tournament director, and the man replied:
«What do you mean I can’t? I have!
The tournament director now turned to the fourth player and asked:
«What does your partner mean when he bids four ‘grapes’?»
The reply was. «I don’t know. He’s never bid grapes before. ln desperation the tournament director exclaimed, «Well, I’ll have to rule that an insufficient bid. You must make it sufficient.»
«All right.» replied the facetious player. «I bid five grapes. Now: What are you going to do about it?»
The second incident took place in a rubber bridge game at the Regency Club recently. During the course of the defense of a hand one of the players made a remark which gave away the fact that he held no spades (hearts were trump). His partner accordingly said, «All right. If I get in the lead, I Won’t lead spades.» But the partner later found himself in the lead with nothing but spades in his hand!
Fortunately, his partner, in addition to having no spades, also had no trumps at this point, so no harm was done.