Tuesday, February
22, 2005 10:21 AM
Hand Evaluation – Tactics
( Pace of Play )
PITBULLS:
In the game of golf , mastering the golf swing demands a consistent tempo & rhythm to the swing. You
have timing mechanisms identified which triggers your
down swing & consistent shot making. After 40 years of Bridge
, I am convinced that you need a similar concept & have the same tempo ,
timing & rhythm in your Bridge game . If you work on having a Bridge rhythm , playing too quickly or too slowly will no
longer be an issue. Ethical considerations of barring partner with hesitations
or making mistakes due to playing too
quickly will disappear. Experienced players have seen the same hand
types over & over again so that could play , bid
& defend most hands at the speed of
light. Do
not do it though. It breaks your rhythm
for the tougher situations that might come up. Develop your own steady rhythm & stick to it hand after hand.
Speed kills & excessively slow playing are both very bad irritating habits
for partners & team mates to endure.
Patterns are a Bridge tool which
eventually will make the game much easier for less experienced
players. I say eventually because the skill of thinking in patterns & applying them will not come overnight. Grey cells need to be trained to
use them which is
the 2nd critical step after the more mundane step of memorizing them. The 3rd step
is to actually apply them in all 4 aspects of Bridge ,
opening leads , bidding , declarer play & defense.
When
to cover an honour with an honour
is done solely
on patterns. A number of tormentees are having difficulty
with that particular pattern application. A declarer was in 3NT
, probably has 4 spades , you have Kx .
Declarer led the queen from the board with 3 of them. Do you cover
? Of course you do , as the pattern is most
likely 4-4-3-2 so partner has a number of spade spots that can be promoted. A
declarer was in 7NT , the clubs were KQxxx on the dummy & you have J8xx . Declarer cashed
the Ace , leads the 10 so do you cover ? Patterns
to the rescue. In advance , you must apply patterns to the club suit.
If declarer has 3 , the pattern is 5-3-3-2 so he will
never finesse the jack with that holding so covering is just assisting
declarer. How does declarer know that clubs are 4-1 ? If declarer has 2 clubs , the pattern is 5-4-2-2 , you will always
get your club trick , so never cover. Simple application of patterns
. A tormentee covered &
the grand slam came home when declarer would never have finessed.
Learning
a new skill like applying
patterns might slow the pace of play down initially . Be aware
of this fact & look for other ways of picking up your pace of play. Also when observing
the dummy , there is usually a key suit so apply your
patterns in advance & be
ready when the cover an honour with an honour situation occurs. Most good players have finely tuned
antennas for picking
up hesitations & find honour cards by
drawing inferences from your pace of play.
Applying patterns also helps you identify
danger signals which direct your line of defense. Reading hesitations also do. Playing
against a good player playing a Polish club system the auction goes
1♦-P-1♠-P
3♠-P-4ϖ