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- This article concerns Contract Bridge and uses terminology associated with the game. See Contract bridge glossary for an explanation of unfamiliar words or phrases.
This article includes a miscellany of short "laws", "rules" and rule of thumb advice (in alphabetical order). Each has some merit but none is always true:
[edit] Maxims
[edit] Bidding
- If you have a choice of reasonable bids and one of them is 3NT, then bid it. Known as "Hamman's Law"; devised by Bob Hamman and published among other places in English Bridge, June 2006, page 19.
- Prefer majors to minors. Bid a major suit before a minor suit. they can overbid opponents at the same level, and score higher.
- Prefer length to strength. A long suit, even if weaker, is often ultimately more powerful and desirable as a contract, than a short suit, however good, because long trumps will usually make tricks in the end, and they allow a greater level of control during the game.
- With a misfit bid cautiously; with a good fit be bold. Avoids chasing a poor contract with a misfit, but enables a surprisingly high contract with a good fit.
[edit] Card play
[edit] Leads, signals and discards
- If in doubt, lead a spade. This applies to NT contracts and works on the assumption that declarer or dummy would likely bid spades if they had them. (Because it is axiomatic to consider a major suit fit if one exists, before settling on no trumps, and spades as the highest ranked suit are the suit which would have been easiest to bid had a fit existed.)
[edit] Declarer
- Eight ever, nine never. This refers to guidance for the common situation where declarer has eight or nine cards in a suit including the Ace and King, and is trying to choose a strategy for drawing the opponents' queen without losing a trick. There are two strategies - the finesse, which is 50-50 in both cases, and the drop, which relies upon the opponent who has the queen having only one or two (but not more) cards in the suit, and becomes more likely to succeed the more cards in the suit are held. Lacking any further information, the maxim suggests that optimal strategy is to finesse when holding a total of eight cards in the suit, and don't finesse but play the two top cards to cause the queen to be "dropped" if nine cards are held. Advanced players will often try to gain further information or deduce which hand holds the queen, before choosing their play.
[edit] Defenders
[edit] Either side
- Cover an honour with an honour. May set up a trick for partner, or prevent the opposition making a 'free' extra trick. Example: Suppose declarer (South) leads the Queen of a suit, dummy (North) has the Ace, and the hand in between (West) has the King. If West fails to play the King over the Queen, declarer will allow the Queen to make a trick, and then the Ace will also make a second trick. By playing the King, declarer must use the Ace and Queen on the same trick, and cannot make a second trick with these cards. In addition, partner may now turn out to have the Jack, which will now be a master.
- Play round to weakness and play through strength. Two versions on a similar theme: Gives partner more opportunity to take advantage of possible finessing situations (since partner will play after the strong hand). Likewise it may give partner more opportunity for tricks, or to win with a lower card, if the last hand (after he/she plays a card) is known to be weak in the suit played.
- Second hand plays low. Prevents wastage of useful cards.
- Third hand plays high. Prevents opponent winning a trick cheaply and may help partner.
