THE DOMINION

Wellington, New Zealand

23 December 1918

(page 3)

"PIRATE BRIDGE."

Bridge players should welcome an authoritative guide to the latest development of auction bridge. Such a work is now provided by Foster's "Pirate Bridge" (E. P.. Dutton and Co., per Angus and Robertson and Whitcombe and Tombs). Mr. Foster is admittedly the best expert authority on card games, more especially the various latter-day developments of the good old game of whist. In an interesting sketch of the history of bridge, Mr. Foster credits a Mr. John Doe, an Anglo-Indian, with having invented auction bridge. It remained, he says, for Mr. Aleister Crowley to go a step further than Doe. The idea of auction bridge was to distribute the privilege of making the trump, giving everyone at the table a chance. Mr. Crowley improved upon this by distributing the privilege of picking the partner who could best support that trump, or who could offer the best defence against it. Instead of having all partnerships decided by their accidental position at the table, his plan was to have the partners select each other by a sort of proposal and acceptance, according to the suitability of their joint hands. Mr. Crowley explained his ideas to Mr. Crowninshield, the editor of the New York weekly "Vanity Fair," who at once saw its possibilities, christened the new game "pirate bridge," and introduced it to the card-playing world in a series of articles, the first of which was published in January 1917. Mr. Foster's work deals with every stage and variation of the game, and offers advice as to the best play at each juncture. The chapters on bidding, accepting and refusing unsuitable partners are models of shrewd observational lucidity in expressing the counsel given. The rules of the game are given in full, and several illustrative games are worked out in detail.