Sport: Dummies Allowed

As if the rationing of canned goods were not enough for one week, U.S. home life was faced with another upheaval: the first changes in the contract bridge rules in eight years.

The amendments* applied to both rubber and duplicate bridge. There were two scoring changes: a 50-point bonus for making any doubled or redoubled contract, whether vulnerable or not; a 50-point bonus for having a part score in an unfinished game of an unfinished rubber. Two rules were changed. Henceforth, when the wrong opponent leads against him, a declarer has a choice of calling or forbidding the lead of any suit he wishes. For a revoke, the penalty is still two tricks, but hereafter there is no additional penalty when the same player revokes a second time in the same suit—and should the revoke cost the nonoffending side more than two tricks, an equitable adjustment must be made so that the revoking side cannot gain by its revoke.

Another change: the word “dummy,” long unofficial, is now accepted officialese for the “declarer’s partner.”

* Dictated by the Whist Club of New York and the American Contract Bridge League.