Story by Cyrus (BBO: cyrusv)

Four-person bridge was a rare treat when I was growing up. My mother didn't play cards, so Dad and I played "Honeymoon Bridge" every alternate day. We played a version with half of both dummies exposed, with the card underneath getting exposed as the card on top got played.

Bidding was, predictably, an unpredictable enterprise. Not only did you get only one shot (unless the opponent also bid, of course), but whether one made the contract or not depended less on the points in one's hand and more on what got exposed in the two dummies, and when.

Dad bid 4S with a solid hand and dummy, and re-bid 5S after my 5H interference. With KQ of Hearts in hand and 6 of the exposed cards in my dummy being hearts, I ventured 6H as a sacrifice. Got doubled, of course. Four more hearts emerged from my dummy, including the Ace! My Queen and Jack-10 and low of Clubs came good (with the AK of Clubs staying buried in Dad's dummy till too late). Made 7!

When Grandma came to visit, Honeymoon Bridge expanded to "Cutthroat." The entire dummy got exposed only after the bidding and the lead. 20 points in hand, yet a 3NT bid going down 3 because dummy comes up with just one point.

One wanted to be third bidder and not the first, because you could then infer something from the other bids (or their absence). Of course, knowing this, Dad sometimes slyly bid a suit he didn't have. He hoped it would keep the others from bidding it, or no trumps. And who would dare double him, given the 13 surprises that dummy could always throw up?

Who needed poker when one had these bridge variations?

We'd sometimes play what was usually a more predictable three-handed version. All three players got dealt 17 cards and discarded four cards each. Any four, except that it had to include your highest Ace (or King if you didn't have any Aces). This made the point count of dummy quite predictable. But distributions could be wild, as players discarded an entire suit if they could.

I remember a hand that I bid where I bid 3NT with 22 points in three solid suits and counting on dummy providing the much-needed stopper in Hearts: the forced discard of its Ace. I'd even contemplated bidding 6, but since Granny also had the Spade Ace, the Ace of Hearts stayed with her. Dad and Granny had 11 of the 12 remaining Hearts. Down 7!

From that day, I named this "more predictable" version "Slit-throat."

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