Kibitzer into Expert

A new character in indoor sport was rapidly reaching fame last week. He was Sam Gordon, who, before 1929, was Portland, Ore.'s most unorthodox builder. He sold homes "nothing down, nothing a month, to people who couldn't afford to buy them." His method was to put up cracker-box houses on cheap lots, turn them over to occupants without interior walls or bathrooms. In the yard he left lumber, carpenters' tools, nails, paint, some garden seed. When the purchaser had finished his house, Gordon gave him the deed and took a $1,200 mortgage. When the mortgage was paid up, Sam Gordon could count on $600 profit per house.

After 1929, shrewd, wisecracking Sam Gordon was just another ex-millionaire. He took to cadging dinners from his friends. He would telephone and say: "Joe, I've got a swell new idea about bridge." Generally, Joe would reply: "That's fine, Sam. Come on up to dinner tonight and we'll talk about it." Thus Sam got a meal, also a lot of bridge. Soon he was teaching bridge at Portland's Alderwood Country Club. Dubbing himself "The Kibitzer,"; he wrote a bridge column for the Portland Oregonian. In 1935, certain that Culbertson and other experts were too complicated for 90% of U. S. bridge players, he introduced his own system -- "Horse Sense Bridge."; Last week The Kibitzer was on the air for National Laundry Co. After the first day's broadcast, the sponsor was besieged with calls for Horse Sense lesson sheets. Sam Gordon's lesson sheet interprets the game's rules in twelve simple paragraphs. Excerpts : > The only aim of two partners is to tell each other: 1) how many tricks they expect to take; 2) what is their best final trump suit, if any.

> In counting tricks -- at no-trump, count one for each ace, king or queen; at suit bid, count one for each ace, king, queen and short card.

> Partner of opening bidder, if he has more than two tricks, should bid -- remembering, for order of preference, the catch word TAN: 1) Takeout to a new suit; 2) Assist partner's suit; 3) No-trump. What puts the Horse Sense system over is Sam Gordon's homey, slangy sales talk. Say his pink throwaways:

"Some people play the Sewer system. It is made up of voice inflections, facial expressions, body motions and bawlings-out. Their best bid is the Leaping Lena jump; their best lead is the card nearest their thumb; their best play is after a peek. Their best assist is jumping down your throat.

"The real trouble with most bridge players is ... that they try to learn too many hard ways of doing things that are easy."

For "the experts," Kibitzer Gordon has nothing but scorn. Says he: "An expert is a kibitzer who has issued himself a diploma." Yet last week Kibitzer Gordon looked like a pretty successful expert himself. For the next six months, he is booked solid for two lectures every day (at $2 a head for a three-day course).

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