June 2020 - 28

A Toast to the Beer Card
Who knew that seemingly innocuous
spot cards could wield such power -
beyond their signaling uses, of course?
The lowly ♣4, for example, is the devil's bedpost. According to superstition,
if the first deal of your session contains
the ♣4, your game is cursed.
On the subject of curses, there's the
♦9, which, for reasons that may or
may not have something to do with
17th-century massacres or tyrant kings
or any number of Scottish catastrophes, is known as the curse of Scotland.
But the deck isn't all doom and
gloom. If you play your cards right, the
♦7 is your ticket to a free drink.
The ♦7 acquired its status as the
beer card in the card room of the
Copenhagen Students' Club during
the '60s, according to Svend Novrup,
a Danish bridge journalist, player and
historian. Not part of the official rules
of bridge, the beer card is a side bet
among fun-loving, consenting players.

BY SUE MUNDAY

"If you made the last trick with the
♦7," Novrup says, "your partner was
supposed to offer you a beer, but only
if you had played the hand in the best
possible way. If you lost a trick trying
to 'beer,' you had to offer your partner
a beer. If you made the last trick with
the ♦7 on defense, declarer owed you
two beers. If you presented the ♦7 as
your last trick and it did not take the
trick, you had to offer your partner two
beers!"
Beer-card rules have evolved and
mutated through the years and differ between home games, regions and
countries. Starting with the universally accepted premise - win the last
trick with the ♦7 and you get a free
beer - variations and refinements may
include:
⦁ Your contract must be something
other than diamonds. (Scoring the
♦7 in a diamond contract is too
easy.)

28 Bridge Bulletin June 2020

Dlr: South ♠ J 10 7
Vul: Both ♥ K Q 2
♦A654
♣Q95
♠Q932
♠A5
♥ 10 7
♥963
♦J93
♦ K 10 8 7 2
♣K632
♣AJ8
♠K864
♥AJ854
♦Q
♣ 10 7 4

⦁ The victorious beerer must claim
their beer (vs. being offered a beer
by their partner). No claim, no beer.

West
Sean

⦁ Taking the last trick with the ♦7
in a doubled contract is worth two
beers, four in a redoubled contract.
Some play that beering in slam contracts doubles the ale payoff.

Pass
1♦
Pass
Pass
All Pass

⦁ In the modern U.S. beer game,
declarer must go plus, a stipulation
which Novrup calls unfair. "You can
play brilliantly in bad contracts to
deserve your beer," he claims.

Svend Novrup enjoys coffee and ♦7 cake
at the Kerteminde Bridge Club's
70th anniversary in 2018.

7
♦

The ♦7 - good for what ales you

7
♦

Oren Kriegel, formerly of the U.S.
junior ranks, is a grand beer meister.
Playing in a Nashville Regional Sunday
Swiss some years back, Oren and his
partner, Sean Gannon, devised a forcing lager-worthy defense.

North

East
Oren
Pass
1NT

South
Pass
1♥
2♥

Kriegel presented the deal on Bridge
Winners in 2015.
"Sean led a mildly-deceptive ♦J.
Declarer took dummy's ace as I played
an upside-down ♦2. The ♠J ran to
partner's queen, and he returned a
diamond, tapping declarer. Declarer
drew trumps and led a spade to the 10
and my ace, and a third diamond eliminated her last heart. When the spades
failed to split, declarer tried a club, but
Sean hopped up with the ♣K to cash
the ♠9, on which I discarded the ♦10.
June 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of June 2020
