March_April

Playing the odds in Spades starts from the opening bid of the game and continues on until the last card is played. Playing the odds is a strategy that should be used to dictate all of your decisions. The trick is to best use the information given you to arrive at the decisions that have the highest chance of being successful. There are many pieces of information that some players fail to take advantage of. This month we will talk about the most common ones.

Bidding

How can you use odds when bidding, don�t you simply �figure� the number of tricks that you will attempt to pull? The general answer to that question is yes. But, there are many pieces of information at your disposal to make a more accurate bid, other than just focusing solely on the cards in your hand. Using this information can help increase your chances of getting the highest bid possible, while minimizing the risk of getting set. The most important piece of information to make note of is the score. There are some situations where it is more appropriate to bid TOTALLY based on the score, paying absolutely no attention to the cards in your hand. There are some very compelling examples of this in the book �How Not to Lose at Spades�, by Jack Strichman. You may not encounter a situation such as this in most spades games you play, but knowing and understanding these situations are critical to understanding how to play the odds. Typically, however, you simply use the score to decide if you are in a situation where you can win or lose on the forthcoming hand. Also, you can use the score to determine how aggressive your bid will be by determining if you�re ahead, and by how far, or vice versa. For example, there would be little to no reason to risk bidding nil if you are leading by a wide margin.

You can also use the bag totals to help you more accurately place your bid. Using this information would be for obvious reasons.

There are two more very critical pieces of information you should use when figuring your bid. These two things go hand-in-hand and change throughout the course of a game. These are your bidding position and how it relates to the total bid to that point. You also need to keep in mind where the strength is, or where the highest bidders are. There is a difference if someone bids 6 just in front of you (or the East position), when compared to a person bidding 6 just after you (or the West position). There is even more of a difference if your partner bids 6. Each of these situations should change your bidding style, or just how aggressively you approach calculating your bid.

The last position bidder (or 4th person to bid) has the most �power� to dictate the tone of the hand. The fourth bidder can choose to take the total bid to 12, or to 10, which would drastically affect how the hand is played out. You must use all the information before you to make the most accurate bid possible, which will help you meet the goals of that hand, each and every time you bid. If you do not, and the opponents do, you are tipping the scales in their favor by relying more on �guess� than on the facts available. It goes without saying that you must NEVER place your bid out of order, even though most on-line spades games allow this. Only then can you utilize all the information available and make the most accurate bid possible.

One quick word about bidding accuracy: I�ve always said that the skill to accurately make your bid through proper play is the key to bidding accurately. On the same hand you may choose to bid either 2, 3 or 4, depending on the cards you hold, the score, bidding position, total bid, where the strength lies, and the bag count, but it is very possible to make all 3 bids exactly by altering your playing strategy.

Playing the Hand

This is where the lines are drawn between beginners, intermediates, and experts. There is seldom a need to deviate from the play that has the highest chance of success, whatever that may be on a particular hand. Most of the time, it is impossible to think through all the possible scenarios of a situation when you are faced with it in a game setting. This is why experts will think up possible scenarios to situations on paper, in their spare time. It prepares them in case they are ever faced with a similar situation. Just because the play you made failed once, it doesn�t mean it was the wrong play. The trick is to learn from it and be better prepared to make the right play next time, even if it means making the same play again. It takes discipline to make a similar play after it failed in a previous attempt. But, if it has the greatest chance of success, then it�s the right play, unless you�ve learned something different on a particular hand.

For example, not long ago my partner bid nil and had the opening lead. She led the 5 of hearts. East ducked with the 3, and I held the A, 4, 2. If I played the Ace to cover in this situation I would be increasing the odds for a possible later round set. I recognized hearts as a strong nil suit for my partner since it was her opening lead. Also, I could see all the cards, either on the table or in my hand, that could be used to set her nil. I ducked with the 2. West played the Q clubs. Her nil was set with an opening lead of a 5. Fortunately she still partners with me, and she wasn�t too upset when she later learned I held the Ace. She understands �Playing the Odds� and how that I could try that 99 more times and it be successful each time.

Now, I usually say that when you are �cover� for a nil, never rely on the opponents to cover. The same holds true if you are nil and are expecting cover from your partner, never play higher than the highest card on the table unless you HAVE to, or you KNOW that your partner has the cover, or is void and HAS trump.

The trick to any play is knowing when to attempt to take the trick and when to duck. The general rule is that on a 12 bid or higher you attempt to take every trick you can. However, sometimes, to take the most tricks possible, it requires you to duck on the right tricks. The general rule in this case is the rule �second hand low, third hand high�. This simply means that in general, if you lay the second card down you duck, and if you play the third card you usually play the highest you have of that suit. This is very basic, but experts utilize this practice as regularly as any other. On a 10 bid or lower you attempt to only take the tricks you bid and give the remainder to the opponents (called bagging). Typically you do this by ducking the tricks you didn�t bid. But, once again, sometimes you can give the opponents the most bags by taking the right tricks, maybe even one you didn�t bid on.

It�s not over. Not only do you need to decide which tricks to attempt to take and which ones to duck, but you need to know how high or low to play when you want to win the trick and how low or high to play when you do not want the trick. There�s only one thing more frustrating than taking all the bags on the last few tricks because you held all your middle cards, and that is going set because you failed to hold them. It is a dilemma on each and every hand. The more you play, and the more you play with regular partners, the more you will be able to �feel� what to play. However, if you make a play that goes against the odds, it will fail more often than it will be successful.

One thing I try to do through the course of a game, that I feel improves my ability to determine what play will be most successful, is that I put my self in the position of each and every person, each and every time a card is played. I ask myself, �What would my hand have to look like to make me play that card?� I get a good feel for what cards are in everyone�s hand by doing that. You may not be able to determine exactly where a specific card is, but it helps to pinpoint where the strength of any given suit may be. Sometimes, knowing this can make a difference as to what I play.