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Thirteen. A fascinating number don't you think? This is especially true for the card playing addict. Cards and the number 13 have created controversy forever it seems. The Puritans felt that cards were tools of the devil and called the deck of cards, "Tickets to the Devil!" I suppose it comes without great surprise then that 13 is the number of cards in a suit. Lucky number 13, sheesh, give me 13 spades and I'll certainly feel unlucky. Not!! Quite possibly I would if I had ventured into some dnil game and the other three players dnilled as I bid 13. Wouldn't that be a joke indeed! Pick up the hand of a lifetime, the hand that will be virtually impossible to hold, and lose points! OK then, enough about the hocus-pocus and the associations that follow the number thirteen, witches, goblins, and Puritans. We are not going to burn any witches today but we are hopefully going to open your eyes to the importance of this number and eliminate some of the memory problems of counting out a hand. First off, we try as hard as we can to count each and every card and I suppose with these dang card counters it's getting easier for folks. However, I feel they are illegal and should not be used or allowed. With that in mind I'll regain the topic of showing you a legal tool to take advantage of giving count--not just in one suit but all suits. Most of you reading this should understand basic high/low signaling technique to show attitude. Note! I said attitude, not necessarily a doubleton. It very well might be a doubleton but the signal is dependent on who is leading the suit. When partner leads we give an attitude signal, and when the opponents lead we give count signals. Why? Well, normally something is wrong when both sides at the table are attacking the same suit. Consider that we reserve the right to show our partner either that we like the suit he is leading, or that we do not like it. So when we are your talking about the high/low signal try to remember that it does indeed depend on who is leading the suit. Unlike Bridge, the game of Spades leaves much more to guesswork involving distributions. Giving count and getting early count is very difficult because all of the hands are concealed. At the bridge table we have one hand exposed, a dummy hand. With this one hand exposed you can do marvelous things regarding count. Remember this simple concept and your counting nightmares will become much easier. Thirteen can only divide "two" ways! When you divide thirteen into four hands you'll see either a three-even-and-one-odd pattern or vice versa. What am I talking about? Look at your cards the next time you play! Your hand will contain either an even, even, even, odd pattern or it will be odd, odd, odd, even. Take this hand:  KQ65  432  76  KQ32 What pattern is this? Three evens and one odd-suited hand! What about this one? Void AK6543 987643 6 Tough? Nah, a void counts as even! So you still have three even patterns and one odd! Okay so ask, "What's the big deal with all this even-odd junk?" Counting is what separates the average player from his peers. Ask any really good player and he will do this. It may appear he has some invisible quality or strong table presence but it is his counting ability and the way he processes this information that gives him that slight edge to win out regarding sets and bagging. In Bridge one hand is exposed. We have all the info we need regarding even and odd with that hand laying on the table. We can also see our own hand. All we need is a signal from partner telling us whether he is even or odd in some suit and we can figure out the other opponent's hand rather quickly. Say we could see this hand at the table!
And we hold the following hand:
The opponent on your left starts out with the OK, so what do we have? If we could actually see this hand we would see that 4 diamonds exist. An even number right? We have an odd number in our hand! At this point we are on a threshold of going either way. Alas, partner clarifies this for us by showing his odd distribution. Going back to our rule regarding thirteen and how it divides we quickly deduce that the opponent leading diamonds must hold an odd number of diamonds. This is painfully easy folks but we don't have one hand exposed for us at the table. I have been experimenting lately and have devised the following convention I think that solves the problem early. Consider the same hand above but this time it is not exposed. The opponent makes the same leads. Wouldn't it be nice if partner could tell us his hand pattern, not just in one suit, but all suits with the play of two cards? Why not use this handy dandy convention this way? Whenever the opponents lead a suit for the first time, either on the opening lead, or after winning some trick and breaking a new suit, your play to that trick will be indicative of the distribution you hold. Granted you will not always be able to show this from both sides because occasionally you will have to cover an honor or win an Ace or King that will stop you from playing high/low or low/high to show distributions. With that premise in mind however consider this notion or convention. When the opponents do break a suit and when you can play low/high, or high/low without compromising your hand, let a high card followed by a low card in this suit indicate more even distribution than odd. Namely, even, even, even, odd distribution. Then let a low card followed by a high card show three odd suits and one even. Going back to our previous example our partners play in the diamond suit would show three odd suits and one even. I know by now you must be thinking this guy is nuts~ Why does he beat this subject so heavily and worry so much about the count and distributions? Well folks, I like to know halfway through the hand how many spades my partner has. Things like, can partner overruff the opponent when I lead this or will I give the opponents a ruff-n-sluff if I lead the suit? Busting nils becomes easier, setting the opponents becomes easier, bagging becomes easier. Everything regarding the play becomes easier when you have tools indicative of count. The signaling task is cumbersome but if we enable a method to show entire hand patterns in one suit we gain this info much more rapidly! On the occasions that you find yourself unable to signal because you must win the trick or play some honor card in a suit the opponents are leading then you fall back on a subsequent suit whenever possible to show your pard your distribution. Some days you get lucky and the opponents lead an Ace followed by a King. Unless you are your partner trumps both can show their respective hand patterns. If you want to use this convention you have my blessing. Call it Tomlinson however as it is most original! Regards, |
