ver it
cannot bring it back, but may very quickly give it one or more
comrades. As soon as each deal is completed, it should be erased from
the mind just as figures from a slate. In that way only can be obtained
the complete and absolute concentration which is essential to perfect
play, and goes a long way toward securing it.

Auction is beyond doubt the most scientific card game that has ever
become popular in this country. The expert has the full measure of
advantage to which his skill entitles him, and yet the game possesses
wonderful fascination for the beginner and player of average ability.
It is doubtless destined to a long term of increasing popularity, and
it is, therefore, most advisable for all who participate that they
thoroughly familiarize themselves with the conventional methods of
bidding and playing, so that they may become intelligent partners, and
a real addition to any table.

AUCTION OF TO-DAY

I

THE DECLARATION[1]

It is well to realize from the start that the declaration is the most
important department of the game, and yet the most simple to master. A
foolish bid may cost hundreds of points. The failure to make a sound
one may lose a rubber, whereas mistakes in the play, while often
expensive and irritating, are rarely attended with such disastrous
results.

[1] Also known as "the Bid" and "the Call."

Any good player who has to choose between a partner who bids well and
plays poorly, and one who is a wild or unreliable bidder, but handles
his cards with perfection, without hesitation selects the former.

To be an expert player requires natural skill, long experience, keen
intuition, deep concentration, and is an art that cannot be accurately
taught either by the instructor or by a textbook. Bidding has been
reduced to a more or less definite system, which may be learned in a
comparatively brief space of time. Consequently, any one possessed of
ordinary intelligence, regardless of sex, age, temperament, or
experience, may become an expert declarer, but of all who attempt to
play, not more than forty per cent. possess that almost indefinable
characteristic known as a "card head," without which it is impossible
to become a player of the highest class.

The average club or social game, however, produces numerous expert
players, while the sound bidder is indeed a _rara avis_.

The explanation of this peculiar condition is not hard to find. Most
Auction devotees bega