April 2005 - 6

Viewpoint
By Brent Manley

Things do not change; we change.
- Henry David Thoreau

Calling a halt
The other day, I went out to run some errands,
and when I got in the car I noticed an open bid box on the front seat.
Something drew my attention to the STOP card, and I got a wild idea.
At the grocery store, as the cashier was ringing up my bananas and toma‑
toes, I tried waving the STOP card over the scanner. Nothing. Not even a
beep. The bill just kept piling up.
Outside the grocery store, I saw a man lighting a cigarette. I pulled out
my STOP card and waved it at him. All I got was a frown.
I went to see Million Dollar Baby for the second time, and just when the
mean boxer was about to take that cheap shot at Maggie Fitzgerald, I pulled
out my card. No luck. I asked myself, "What good is this thing?"
Then I remembered I was playing bridge that night, and the bid box need‑
ed to be returned to the club. On the first board of the session, I opened a
weak 2 as dealer. I didn't use the STOP card.
Almost as soon as my 2 bid hit the table, my left‑hand opponent had a
Pass card down. Whoa, I thought to myself, this guy is dead broke - and
his partner now has a problem.
If 2 is passed to him, he might have a hand that, in different circum‑
stances, he would consider for some action despite an inherent risk. Because
he knew his partner was broke, my RHO could be sure that taking action
would be wrong, but he was not entitled to that information.
At the table, my partner bid 2NT and I played 3. RHO was off the
hook, but I was left with the feeling that the way this played out was not
satisfactory.
What if, I thought, I had used the STOP card? It would at least have
reminded LHO that after my skip bid, he was obliged by ACBL regulation
to pause and look at his hand before acting. If this happened with every
skip bid, there would be no unauthorized information. Remember, by the
way, that a pause is required even without a skip‑bid warning, verbal or
otherwise.
I have received a lot of correspondence lately about the STOP card, spe‑
cifically the tendency of some players to use it to "wake up" their partners
to the skip bid. This is clearly inappropriate, and the STOP card detractors
want to stop the STOP.
Here's something to keep in mind: the skip‑bid warning has been part of
ACBL regulations since 1957, and the STOP card has been with us since
bid boxes arrived. Neither is going away.
Most of the "offenders" are probably new or relatively inexperienced
players. They might not even know that the STOP card's use is narrowly
defined. It's not the card, it's the players. Seems to me education is a better
solution than elimination.

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Letters to
the Editor
Too serious?
To the Editor:
Mike Flader (Ruling the Game,
January, page 38) responds to a
club director who asks about the
correctness of the ruling she made
when a player wanted to change her
call after waving a Pass card around
while carrying on a conversation
with a player at another table. The
director ruled that the player had
passed, and she was penalized for
not paying attention, unauthorized
information, etc.
Ask 100 bridge players who don't
play duplicate why they don't, and
99 will tell you that duplicate is too
serious or not friendly. I suggest
that this director is a classic case
in point. How about checking the
rules on a technical point before
ruling? The behavior penalty may
be technically correct, but is that
the priority in a club game? If this
were to occur in my game and the
opponents wanted the miscreant
punished, I would take them aside
and suggest that they may be too
serious for club‑level duplicate.
NANCY DEWEESE
Central Lake MI

Coach is back
To the Editor:
After coaching the University of
Southern California's tennis team for
more than two decades and winning
four NCAA championships, Dick
Leach has returned to the duplicate
scene and rejoined the ACBL.
With a bit of larceny in mind, I
Bridge Bulletin

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of April 2005