The idea is partnership Spades. Two players must come together and work as a team, not merely as two cooperating individuals. If one of them believes he has a winning team strategy he must take charge and let his partner know about it. In doing so he has taken the role of captain of the ship.

Captaincy

In this sense, the captain is not necessarily the stronger player. The mantle of captaincy is borne by the player who has been dealt the cards that strongly suggest a team strategy. Thus, the captaincy shifts from one player to the other in the course of the session.

Not every deal is suitable for there to be a captain in charge. In fact, most deals see both players scrambling about, each using his own individual skills to try to obtain the best result for the team. Yet on the occasional deal where one player indicates he thinks he knows the route, his partner is expected to cancel his own plans and cooperate. This series of articles presents various scenarios where captaincy emerges.

Drawing Trump

Score N/S: 112 E/W: 121 Dlr: North A4 J43 J974 10962 Q876 Q9 AK86 874 J K10872 Q10532 AK K109532 A65 -- QJ53 East South West North 2      5       4     1 East led the A.

A player who has long spades must take control of the deal. The team strategy in this case must be to lead spades in order to extract the enemy's trumps. The early lead of a low spade, therefore, identifies the leader as having started with at least five spades (there may be some exceptions). Now we have a captain. His partner cooperates in several ways. The most important is to return a spade at his earliest opportunity. This theme is familiar to all regular readers of the Master Spades website, but it is otherwise not generally well-known. The accompanying deal is such an example. East won his AK and shifted to diamonds, which South trumped. Now comes the

This deal provides us with a clear example of the captaincy principle. Here South sets the strategy and North should abandon his own plans, if any, to cooperate for the sake of the team. If the captain wants to draw trump, what are some of the other things that the "1st mate" can do to assist his partner? Well, sometimes he is unable to return a spade. In those cases he must be aware of the principle of preserving his partner's trumps. He should try to find partner's side entry rather than giving him a ruff. If that does not seem likely, his choice of lead should lean towards the side suit least likely to give his RHO a chance to overtrump his partner. Finally, he may have to discard on the run of spades. This is the opportunity to signal his strength.

It is most desirable when captaincy is declared early in the play. Sometimes it can occur on the first trick, even on the opening lead. The use of Standard Leads is the key to a successful partnership. By agreement, the lead of a low card suggests strength in that suit and asks for the suit to be returned. By contrast, the lead of a middle card shows disinterest. Some pairs wish to do it the opposite way. This is fine, as long as both partners have shaken hands on it. In the next example though, North and South were from different planets.

North 63 109842 KJ8 Q102 West 9842 A75 A104 652 East 105 KQJ3 653 AK83 South AKQJ7 6 Q972 J97 The bidding: South West North East 5 3 1 3 South led the 2

South led the 2. North considered East's 4, and then went in with the J. Pleased that he guessed right, he shifted to the 10 to await a second diamond lead. It never came. East won the K and continued with a low heart, forcing South to trump. South correctly drew trump, but it took his entire suit to pick up all of West's spades. When he gave up the lead to West's A, West cashed the A and led to his partner's clubs. East cashed one last heart to fulfill his side's bid.

North/South have a set if North were playing Standard Leads. Reading South's 2 as a captaincy statement and as a request for a diamond return, North wins the K at Trick 1 and returns the jack (or wins the jack to return the king). Driving out West's ace early in the hand gives North/South the key tempo. When South comes in with a heart ruff he can run off a total of eight tricks -- five spades and three diamonds -- to inflict the set.

The Captaincy Signal

We have just added a new card signal to our repetoire -- the captaincy signal. It is not really unique; we are merely giving a name to the collection of assorted signals we have developed all along. The meaning of these signals now becomes more than just a suggestion of which card to play. The signaller is trying to set a team strategy. It must be assumed he has a hand suitable for this strategy.

I should point out at this time that the strategy chosen by the captain will not always be the winning plan. Sometimes the perverse distribution of the cards favors a different line of play. Such is the nature of Spades, in which guesses must be made early in the hand when there is not much information. We will deal with this problem later in the series. For now, go on to Part 2 to see several diverse examples of the captaincy principle.

Regards,
Popsicle