BRIDGE Sylvia throws a curve

Not many members realized at first how little Sylvia knew when she started to play with the experts at the club. But it didn’t take the cognoscenti long to discover the vast areas of ignorance in Sylvia’s game, nor did it take them very long to try to take advantage of her shortcomings.

While it may be that all’s fair in love and war, I always had reservations about the propriety of some players at the club who psyched against Sylvia. She had such an extraordinary talent for doing the wrong thing that it seemed to me they should have left well enough alone instead of trying to make things even more complicated for her.

But there were times when such tactics boomeranged against the perpetrators. One of her first great triumphs occurred on this deal when Sylvia (East) was playing against two of the more larcenous members of the club.

South bid a spade, and West doubled. North, who could smell a psychic a mile away, assumed his partner was throwing a curve, and he passed. Sylvia, who couldn’t tell the difference between a takeout double and a Wiener schnitzel, thought her hand was too weak to bid, so she also passed.

South assumed the spades were all banked against him and so ran to two diamonds. West passed, and North, having first congratulated himself on diagnosing the opening spade bid as a psychic — apparently confirmed by his partner’s runout to two diamonds — also passed. Sylvia then closed the auction with a pass.

You never did hear such a ruckus as took place after South saw the dummy and realized he was playing in two diamonds when six spades was practically laydown.

Sylvia never quite understood why he squawked so much, since South wound up making his partscore with two overtricks.

Tomorrow: Happy ending.