Following the Rules
A fun part of learning for me is remembering the catch phrases you hear from books, online and from your teachers. Phrases such as “be nice to partner” or “eight ever, nine never.” These things stay with me and although I find myself occasionally breaking the “rules”, I know immediately the moment I do. The point is that without anyone having to tell me, I’m coaching myself to be a better player. The “high cards from the short side first” rule, for example, is one I’ve broken many times now and each time I have that d’oh moment when I realize what I’ve done wrong. Let’s hope all of these moments will catch up with me eventually and I’ll start to remember the rules before I break them. I have to learn not to be so impulsive and to think before I act.
Last night I played online with my mum (my current teacher) and two of her students. We often get together on a Tuesday evening and play for an hour or so. To my surprise, and delight, I was declarer on seven of the ten hands we played, so I certainly got lots of practice. In the following hand my RHO failed to follow a “rule” that we have all heard many times, something I frequently fail to follow myself. See if you can spot it. Here’s the hand.
I can often hear my mum’s voice in my head when I play, “now, Sally..”, and this is one of those times. “Always return partner’s suit”, she would say to me. And I thought it was just to be polite. But as you can see here, it costs tricks. If RHO immediately returns a spade I am forced to play my ♠K and then when she gets in with her ♣A the opponents can run spades. My plan for this hand was to knock out the ♣A so she really did me a favor. Thank you RHO! (now isn’t that something you should be saying to your partner?). In her defense, she did return a spade on the third trick, but by then it was too late and I made my contract with an overtrick. I could easily have made the same mistake with her hand, impulsively playing my ♣A rather than thinking it through. Now I can see that it really does pay to be polite.