| Tips and Strategies In the play of an ordinary hand, where there is no declarer, players should aim to acheive their own goals. It is generally a good idea to dispose of short holdings in suits and "middling" cards (that are neither likely winners nor losers) as soon as possible either by discarding or leading them at an early opportunity. There is a small bias toward playing the club suit as each card remaining after play counts for 3 tricks and the usual number of tricks taken is 3 to 6. If there is a declarer, however, the two defenders should form a temporary partnership to try to defeat the declarer. Using principles of card signalling similar to those used in Bridge, defenders can acheive quite quickly by the play of just a few tricks the distribution of each of the suits and thus can formulate an accurate sketch of declarer's target and means to the target. Some suggested signalling and playing conventions that may be employed are discussed below. Considering whether to declare or not depends very much on a player's hand, the state of the clumond (and the player's game wealth) and the skill levels of the opponents. Normally, a non-distributional hand plays well enough in no trumps as do some one-suited and two suited hands (with 5 or more lengthed suits). Strength of a hand is not only to be judged by the number and quality of honour cards, but also the little pipped cards (2's, 3's, 4's and 5's) which may be used for ducking unwanted tricks. Playing Conventions that may be used In a hand where there is a declarer, the choice of card to lead and the suit together with the responses by the second defender may be as follows:- Open the longest non-trump suit. Play a high card to show an even holding (usually 6 or 8) and a low card to show an odd number ( 5 or 7). Of two equal lengthed suits, lead the lower ranking (according to the target setting code rank of the suits). Responder signals in the same way to show the parity (odd or even) of the suit led. If no 5 card or longer suit is held, lead trumps showing parity by similar means. These principles may also be employed when declarer takes control. |
The Principle of Immediate Play of the Second Round in a Suit This convention is offerred as an advanced signalling technique which may be employed. The principle is that if a second card of a suit that has been led is played at the earliest opportunity, this guarentees that one of the players will be made to be void in that suit. eg. Suppose one defender in a spade clumond attempt, leads the HA (implying a holding of 6 or 8 hearts). Assume the trick holds (everyone following). The play of a second heart confirms that the holding was from an 8-card holding. Conversly if another suit is played, this would confirm that the heart holding was a 6-card suit. eg. Suppose in another spade clumond attempt, C2 is led (implying 5 or 7 clubs), which is won by the co-defender's CK (showing probably 2, 4 or 6 clubs). The immediate play of another club would clarify the holding exactly. If declarer follows suit, then the co-defender had 2 clubs, else if declarer "shows out" by not playing clubs, he / she had 6 clubs. A switch to another suit thus implies exacly 4 clubs (or possibly only the 1 club) |
| page last updated 29th May 2009 |