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ent001382-012
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Dogmeat continued Et iu, Brut? Bold new Brut for men. By Faberge. For after shave, after showeo, after anything! Brut. The rest of the day was anticlimax. After you?╟╓ve played Stone and Erdos and lost by 10 points, nobody else is likely to rattle you. We lost our third match in a row, finally won a match by holding stupendous hands that even a Jukes-Kallikak team could not have messed up, and came into our fifth match of the tournament with a stirring record of one win and three losses. Right away we began losing again, and soon we were so far down that in desperation I pushed Cave into two contracts that Charles Goren, playing double-dummy with Ely Culbertson at his elbow, could not have made. Under this pressure, Cave re- voked, and immediately one of the op- ponents, a wizened man who looked like Uriah Heep after a luncheon of pick- les, leaned forward and said in a voice choked with happiness, ?╟úI?╟╓m afraid, sir, you revoked!?╟Ñ He jotted down the pen- alty with a big flourish of the pen, an- nounced that at this juncture we could not win the match even if we grand- slammed, and departed our company, his feet barely touching the floor. Cave said, ?╟úListen, Jack, if you ever?╟÷?╟Ñ ?╟úCalm yourself,?╟Ñ I interrupted, ?╟úand remember: have fun!?╟Ñ Somehow or other we managed to win our sixth and last match of the day and finished the first session with a rec- ord of 2 and 4. At the next table Oswald Jacoby, the undisputed genius who has accumulated more master points than any other player in the history of bridge, finished the day with a record of 1 and 5. We might be dogmeat, but we were plainly better than Jacoby. That night Cave and I had one of our innumerable skull sessions. ?╟úLook,?╟Ñ Ray said, ?╟úwe played six matches and we?╟╓re 2 and 4 and all that keeps us from being 3 and 3 is a match we lost by 10 points to the best team in the tournament. Doesn?╟╓t that tell you some- thing??╟Ñ ?╟úYeh,?╟Ñ I said. ?╟úIt tells me that God is not dead.?╟Ñ ?╟úWhat it adds up to,?╟Ñ he said, ?╟úis that dogmeat does have a chance. We can?╟╓t win; maybe, but we can draw good cards and scare ?╟╓em.?╟Ñ Ray said that from now on we were going to be tigers. We 112 were not going to shake and tremble. ?╟úIf we?╟╓re gonna lose,?╟Ñ he said, ?╟úlet?╟╓s lose through ignorance, not cowardice*?╟Ñ ?╟úYes,?╟Ñ I growled, ?╟úwe?╟╓re tigers. We?╟╓ll go out there and kill ?╟╓em. We?╟╓re ready for anybody.?╟Ñ And we were. Except Harold Ogust and Cliff Russell. Ogust is an international player who will clobber you at the bridge table in. the morning, kill you on the tennis court in the afternoon and embalm you at gin rummy in the evening. Russell?╟╓s calm exterior belies his several championships and a competitive drive as strong as Ogust?╟╓s. After two hands and an oppos- ing slam, we were 1,600 points down, and if we had been tigers, they had been tyrannosauruses. But Cave dealt us a slam of our own, made a doubled con- tract and suddenly we were back in the match. We even had the satisfaction ot seeing the other partnership arguing. After a round of bidding in which they had failed to reach game, the soft-spoken Russell said, ?╟  ?╟ Harold, with me that three- spade bid is forcing.?╟Ñ c ?╟úWith me? With me??╟Ñ erupted Mr. Ogust. ?╟úWhat is all this with-me stuff? We?╟╓re playing partnership bridge! You?╟╓re always saying, ?╟ With me this is forcing!?╟╓ Well, with bridge it isn?╟╓t!?╟Ñ By the time the explosion was over, we were down to the last hand and all Cave and I needed was a game to win the match. We didn?╟╓t get it and, to make matters worse, Ogust and Russell ex- plained how we could have won if we hadn?╟╓t made certain key mistakes. They were only trying to help us, they said. Thanks a lot, we said. Until then we had been living in a fool?╟╓s paradise. We lost our next match so badly that we had to concede again after the seventh hand. So now we came into the last four matches of the qualifying round, and all we had to do to qualify was win four in a row. ?╟úWell, what the hell,?╟Ñ I said. ?╟úWe?╟╓ve sure had fun.?╟Ñ ?╟úThat was the whole idea,?╟Ñ said the wise old Cave. Playing our cards with gay aban- don, we won our next match against a whistler and a hummer who should be banned forever from whistling and hum- ming in a $20,000 event. In a $10,000 continued