Sunday, August 20, 2006 9:55 PM

Hand Evaluation – Partnership ( Single Handed Defense )

PITBULLS:

I have been fortunate that over the years that I have played with good partners. Mike Chomyn , Bryan Maksymetz , Vish , Subash , Peter Jones & Tom Gandolfo to name a few. Playing with good partners means you are not required to defend “single handedly” . Your partner knows how to count hands , count HCP’s , count declarers tricks & know how to signal depending on the context of the situation. Their discards quite often map out the defense for you so lead you by subtle inferences. They are also good at suit preference tricks & Smith echos.

I played with Subash in a regional in Edmonton 5 years ago .It appeared that every hand we were on defense was like we were playing double dummy. We were about to win the Open Pairs when Subash made the fatal mistake of buying me my 3^rd beer in succession down the home stretch. This caused me to endplay myself on the last board & we lost by 4 matchpoints. However, saying that our defense was responsible for most of our matchpoints was an understatement.

If you are a good player who has had a history of playing with weaker partners , you have quite an adjustment to make when you are playing with an expert defender. You have been programmed to ignore partners defense , discards , leads and signals because partner has no idea what is going with the hand. As Kelsey says , “most defenders operate in a fog of uncertainty” so it’s best to ignore what they are doing. To protect yourself , it’s you vrs declarer and damn the consequences. You have almost trained yourself not to draw inferences from what partner is doing because partner has lead you down the wrong path so often in the past.

Now you are playing with an expert partner. He notices that you not paying attention to his discards , signals or following his suggested defense. He notices that you are not applying patterns or counting HCP’s. In other words , you are not taken on an equal load of the partnerships defensive responsibilities. Defense is also a partnership game. Trust is necessary & confidence in your partner is important especially when declarer is practicing deception.

Do not be a lazy defender & just pitch cards. It is a hard habit to break as you have always just trusted yourself & your educated guesses over the years on defense. Partnership defense is something that you have to work on & comes with the territory for an expert partnership to be successful. Guessing is repugnant for an expert partnership even experienced educated guesses. Applying patterns & counting HCP’s were invented for turning guesses into certainties. As Nike says “just do it !”