The Penguin Book of Card Games: Everything You Need to Know to Play Over 250 Games (22 page)

favour you as dealer: no one leads trumps against a solo, and by the

time you have a void suit you could either ruf low and be

overtaken by the Jack, or ruf high and so strengthen the Jack in its

holder’s hand.

Hand 2, however, favours dealer rather than eldest, being risky to

lead from. You would have to squeeze a fifth trick from a

Queen,requiring you to be so placed as to play last to a trick led in

the appropriate suit.

General y, a solo bid requires length or strength in trumps rather

than high cards in plain suits, and trumps are usual y best exploited

by ruf ing rather than leading them, except in hands like (1) above.

Similar principles apply to an abundance. Always resist the

temptation to bid abundance instead of solo on the strength of eight

tricks and a stroke of luck! This is not only no substitute for nine

tricks but also, quite frequently, receives enough strokes of bad luck

to yield fewer than eight. It’s best to count probable losers rather

than winners in assessing the hand – if they exceed four, don’t do it.

Abundances are cal ed on hands of various shapes, such as very

long trumps (3), overal strength (4), and two-suited hands (5). For

example (with spades trump in each case):

3. QJT87642 A2 7 AK

4. AQJ73 AK AKQ AK6

5. AJT953 AKQJ63 8

A slam hand needs only to be recognized when seen. Unbeatable

hands obviously contain consecutive top cards in every suitheld,

whether four lots of AKQ and an odd Jack, or al thirteen of a suit.

Whether or not to gamble on such a hand as, say, AKQ in three suits

and AKQ2 in the fourth depends on what you can af ord to lose

should one player be able to hold back the right suit for the last

trick.

Prop and Cop, inexplicably abolished in some schools, is an

interesting bid, of ering as much fun as opportunity for skilful play.

Lying behind it is the idea that if no one is strong enough to bid

five tricks alone, any two players with hands strong enough for four

each may get together in a bid of eight. The important thing is to