Pete's Rules Of Thumb

Pete’s Rules of Thumb for playing Bridge Bidding 1) Bob Hamman’s Law: If you are faced with a choice of reasonable bids and 3NT is one of them, bid it. a. It’s always better to play in a contract that requires a lower number of tricks. b. Your bidding might already have hinted at your holding but 3NT is also a confident bid, saying that you don’t have weaknesses elsewhere (even if you have). It puts pressure on the opponents to find a lead. c. It stops the opponents playing in the same level but in a suit – in other words, if they want to sacrifice, they have to go up a level. d. Lastly, playing in No-Trumps also means that your opponents can’t ruff your winners. They will have to set up long suits to beat you but, with the majority of points, you are the favourite. 2) Prefer Majors to Minors. a. As with Hamman’s Law, you get to a game at a lower level. b. Playing in a major (especially playing in spades) means that the opponents may have to go up a level to compete and/or sacrifice. 3) Playing in a 4-4 fit can often be better than playing in a 5-3 fit. a. It is generally best declarer play to ruff in the hand with the shorter trump suit. That way you make your long suit anyway and get “extra” tricks by ruffing with the short suit. b. If you have a 5-card trump suit or longer, you will often be relying on the long cards as winners, simply because it’s a long suit. The trouble is that if you use a 5th card to ruff, then you have not actually made a gain. It’s a trick you were likely to win anyway. c. Having a 4-4 fit gives you the choice of hands to be the “short” suit. You have a majority of the trumps and the fourth card may come good as a long suit but you can now pick the best hand for ruffing in. 4) Prefer length over strength. a. You may look at a trump suit such as K J 10 9 and think that is better than J 10 9 6 4 3 but that’s not the case. b. Length in a trump suit gives you better control, particularly if the opponents have a strong side suit and might force you to ruff. If the opponents can shorten your trumps, they get control, since they may then end up with the majority of trumps. c. The long suit in trumps will always come good towards the end, which is not the case with a long suit outside trumps.

Pete’s Rules of Thumb

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5) When you have a misfit, be cautious; when you have a good fit, be brave. a. Going back to the K J 10 9 holding, if your partner cannot fill in the gaps, you may easily lose the K and the J, meaning that your hand is worth 4 points less than you thought. b. Clearly the same is true of any points in your partner’s hand. c. The advantages of bonuses for game and slams in Rubber and Teams Bridge (and even in Duplicate, though to a lesser extent) means that you should push the boat out when you have a good hand. d. You will seldom get to game in a misfit hand so making overtricks at the one level is much better than trying to make a three level contract but with a serious chance of going off. Declarer play 1) Think slowly; play quickly. a. This is more psychological than technical. Confidence in declarer play is everything. Make the opponents think they have no chance and you will often goad them into making mistakes. b. Take your time at trick 1 and make a good plan. Only change that plan if something unexpected happens, for example, declarer showing out in a suit or a bad trump break. 2) Missing the queen? Eight ever; nine never. a. This applies to hands where you have Ace and King in a suit but not the queen. b. This maxim suggests that, if you need to make the maximum tricks, you should try for a finesse if you have 8 cards but try for the queen to drop if you have 9. c. The maxim is predicated on percentages. The finesse will work 50% of the time (but see below). If you have 9 cards, the queen will drop 53% of the time. d. Treat this maxim with caution. It only really applies when you can’t afford to lose a trick. e. If you have a hint where the queen is (eg because of the bidding), the percentages are changed and the maxim might fail. Use all the available information. f. The maxim also fails if you have A K J in one hand, since you can play the Ace first, just in case it picks up a singleton queen.

Pete’s Rules of Thumb

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Defending a contract 1) Against a no-trump contract, strongly consider leading a major suit. a. We saw that a principle of bidding was to play in a major suit over a minor suit. If declarer hasn’t explored a major suit, they are unlikely to have a majority of the cards in that suit. b. If you have a shortage in both points and a major suit then your partner may have enough of both to establish the major suit and still have an entry to get in to cash the longer tricks. c. If you have a choice, prefer spades to hearts, since opponents would also prefer spades over hearts, were they given a choice. 2) Play through strength and play into weakness. a. Imagine you are on lead and dummy will play fourth to your lead. Play a suit that dummy is weak in because your partner may be able to beat Declarer’s card. In any case, dummy may not be able to beat your partner’s. b. If you on lead and dummy will play second to your card, play through dummy’s strength. Your partner may be able to flush out declarer’s high card quite cheaply. Even if dummy plays high, declarer may need to use two high cards to take out just one from the defence. 3) Second hand plays low; third hand plays high. a. When you are playing second, generally, don’t give things away. You probably don’t know declarer’s plan so keep your good cards hidden, unless it’s essential that you win a trick. Your high card is unlikely to disappear and you may be giving a trick away. b. When you are playing third, it means your partner had a reason for leading that suit. If your partner led into strength, there was a reason so play your best card. 4) Aces are mean to take kings, not twos a. Don’t be in a rush to cash your ace. b. Imagine a case where declarer has Kxx and there is Qxx on table. Declarer leads low and, second in hand, you go up with your Ace. Now declarer can make both Q and K. Hold your Ace up and Declarer can only make the Q, losing two tricks in that suit. 5) Cover an honour with an Honour a. It is seldom wrong to follow this rule wholeheartedly. b. Don’t let your opponents make a cheap trick. Just as Aces are meant to take Kings, so are Queens meant to take Jacks etc. c. If your opponents lead a high card and you cover, you will have taken out two of their high cards with just one of yours, which is nearly always the right thing to do. Pete’s Rules of Thumb

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