Bridge-Builders

In a large room in a modest hotel on a Manhattan side street last week met a number of women and seven men. They sat at card-tables in groups of four. Of the women, who were between the ages of 25 and 55, some were dressed with the restraint of style that indicates expense and others had an air of neatly inadequate penury. But all were businesslike. Of the men, one caught first attention-a stoutish man in a pincenez, with a broad waistcoat crossed by a gold watch-chain, who spent most of his time standing beside a blackboard. This was Wilbur Cherrier Whitehead, bridge-expert. The people with him were all students in his course for bridge teachers. When he or some other expert was not explaining plays to them, or diagraming special hands, they spent the time playing bridge. At the end of a five-day meeting, the student-teachers were examined by Whitehead's secretary, who is a bridge teacher herself. Those who passed were given diplomas, valid for one year, proving beyond cavil that they are qualified to teach bridge.

Wilbur Cherrier Whitehead is not the only famed bridge professional. There are also Mr. and Mrs. Ely Culbertson,* Milton C. Work, Sidney S. Lenz, E. V. Shepard. They are Whitehead's friends, not his rivals. They call him "Whitey." His position is authoritative. Other experts have at times disowned or retracted strategies they once commenced. Not Whitehead. He is conservative, a grandfather. He comes from Columbus, used to be president of Simplex Automobile Co. when it made cars you could not wear out. The word "Simplex" was cut deep on a triangle of brass on the blunt bonnet. As he grew older Mr. Whitehead felt that business interfered with his real passion; he gave up business. He runs his school, lectures and writes on bridge. His rates for ten lessons sent by mail is $10; personal tutoring runs much higher.

An expert who, like Whitehead, has had a hand in the movement responsible for replacing auction bridge with contract bridge as the standard social card-game, did not attend Whitehead's convention. He, Harold Stirling Vanderbilt, one of the best bridge-players in the world, has written a book /- on Bridge and brought a new word into the language, "vanderbilting." Briefly, and in popular terms, you vanderbilt when you bid one club as an indication that you have three quick tricks in your hand. Though the club bid indicates the three tricks, to bid it you do not need any clubs. It is merely informative. Presupposing no bid from the opponent on your left, your partner then must bid. If he has not two quick tricks, his bid must be one diamond, no matter how much length he has in any particular suit, and you may then declare your real strength. If he has two quick tricks, he is given the choice of bidding either a no-trump or his best suit. (If that suit be diamonds, he must bid two diamonds.) Obviously, the advantage of the Vanderbilt bid lies in the fact that the bidding is kept open and the strong three-trick hand is allowed to bid again after learning the strength of its partner's.

Vanderbilting is of course a cliche to Whitehead students of the game. Some of these are women who have taken up bridge teaching as a way to pass the time; some are crusaders, campaigning to make the country safe for more and better bridge; many are in it out of plain necessity, having in some way lost or severed connections from positions that make bridge sheer fun.

Among the accomplished teachers are Mrs. A. E. Winter of Green Bay, Wis., who has taught Mr. J. Early Morgan of Morgan Lumber Co., Oshkosh, and Waldemar Bergstrom of Bergstrom Paper Co. in Green Bay; Mrs. Richard F. Peyton of Chicago, bridge adviser to the Sprague Warners, McLennans and Mrs. Simmons of Simmons Hardware Co. (beds, mat tresses) ; Miss Hester Butcher, of Colo rado Springs, instructor to the Broadmoor Hotel interests, and other leading citizens. Also present at the Whitehead meeting last week were Mrs. Charles Giessler of Boston and Mrs. Lida Gilder of Manhattan, both advisers to a numerous aristocracy. Also Mrs. Jay A. Jonas Jr. of Philadelphia, whose pupils are Wideners. Biddies. Strawbridges, Peppers; Victor R. Smith of Miami, and Teacher Mrs. Bertha E. Sharpe who said of Tulsa, Okla., that it is "a card-playing town but not a contract town."

* Last week appeared Vol. 1, No. 1 of a monthly The Bridge World ($3.50 per annum). Editor: Ely Culberston

/- CONTRACT BRIDGE-Harold S. Vanderbilt -Scribnrrs ($2.50).