( Under an old almost obsolete statute, Bigot and all other club members, who were actively participating in a duplicate when police burst in, were subsequently brought before a Crown Court to face charges under Section 4 of the Vagrancy Act 1824, with pretending or professing to tell fortunes. A short extract from the trial's transcript appears below. Bigot as usual put himself forward as counsel for the defence. )
Prosecutor (P) : Under Section 4 of the Vagrancy Act any person using subtle craft, means or device, by palmistry or otherwise, to deceive others are rogues and vagabonds, and should be punished with imprisonment and regular floggings.
B-J : I object......
P : Why only the only day we had in court a right old hag professing to tell fortunes by means of playing cards !
B-J : But bridge is a game of skill....
P : Yes....but the essence of the game is both deception.....and the prediction of what tricks are to be made in the immediate future by whoever wins the auction.
B-J : There's more to bridge than that....
P : Well Bigot.....tell me this.....are some of the bids designed to deceive the opponents ?
B-J : I'm not sure...
P : Are there not off-centre bids, optional doubles, lead inhibiting bids, deviations, anti-system bids , psyches, weak/strong bids, multi (3 way) bids......need I go on ?
B-J : Yes....
P : And do they not deceive the opponents is that they left in the dark about the bidder's actual HCPs and overall shape of his/her hand ?
B-J : Yes...but...
P : Therefore the deception element of this crime has clearly been established.....so now let's move onto the fortune telling bit ......
B-J : If you must...
P : Is it not the case that the winners of the auction have predicted how many tricks they think they will make when the hand is eventually played out ?
B-J : Yes...but...
P : So if you are in 4S then you have predicted that you will 10 tricks......but that might not always be the case ?
B-J : Yes....sometimes you fail by being one or two tricks short....other times you end up with over-tricks
P : Exactly.....you have deceived your opponents as to the future outcome, which in turn might have caused them to opt out of the auction too early, or fail to stick in the boot at the close with a double
B-J : Yes...but..
P : And what's worse is that by combining deception with false predictions, the biggest culprits end up with the prize money...... unscrupulous rogues and vagabonds corrupted by greed and criminal intent
B-J : You're so wrong....bridge is about honest and accurate communication, where players strive to reach a perfect contract.... or to punish opponents who found themselves in an imperfect contract....
Judge : Well.... from what I've heard bridge players clearly use their craft and a whole load of devices to deceive, and given the fact that cards are dealt randomly, with suits breaking badly, with honours unfavourably placed, all that players can do in an auction is make a prediction....... indeed, players try to use bids to deceive and/or obstruct opponents from ever knowing or finding the perfect contract, hence forcing them into making predictions. Moreover, bridge players choose to embrace instinct, intuition, abstract reasoning, psychology, and mathematical probability to enhance their predictive skills. Such actions by any objective standard are impulsive, capricious and incalculable. Yes....you're all as guilty as hell.
B-J : Oh shit !
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