Bridge Tip # 1

About five years ago a friend, Sara Eisner,  who  I’ve known for many years asked if I could send her any any tips on bridge. I proceeded to write and send one daily for almost two months. Many of them are conventional knowledge, and some are solely my ideas. Some have stories or hands.

Bridge tip # 1 Especially when defending against good players make sure  every card  you play comes from the middle of your cards and not the end. If you don’t  do that an excellent declarer may notice and know you are out of a suit. You  must be thinking his how you think declarer will play the hand. If you  anticipate constantly how declarer will play the hand and, you may have have  to shift the positions of your cards frequently. If you think the declarer  is watching from which position you are taking your card this is especially  important to refrain from taking a singleton honor from the end.

 Of course, you can take countermeasures if you think declarer is watching from which   position you are drawing. For instance against a good, but not top declarer  who you think is watching the location from which you are drawing when you  have Qx of trump when you think declarer has to guess the location of the  queen, take the small trump from the end so declarer, who normally play for  the drop may play you as having started with a singleton trump. Since it  is unethical the declarer to have been looking at the location from which  you drew your card, there can be no complaints. If you take all the cards  you play as suggested this would not apply.