All News

EXPERT CARD COUNTING

Brilliancies come in different ways. We will show you an innovative way of finding winning bridge.

You must have seen examples of brilliant card play and defence in past bridge articles, of how declarers worked out the shape of defenders’ hands and engineered brilliant endings, making absolutely impossible contracts. There have also been many examples of brilliant defensive plays shown here on this website and elsewhere.

Zia, Meckstroth, Rodwell, Hamman….you’ve seen them all…but it is not just overseas players who can impress. Look no further than our own top players. …and what follows occurred in July 2017…hot off the press….at Te Aroha.

Welcome, Linda Cartner, one of our most experienced internationals of the last 20 years, playing as normal with Glenis Palmer.

Expert card counter, Linda Cartner, prepares for her next gruelling bridge session

They were playing Teams and were part way through a 10 board match. The boards had got a little out of order and arriving earlier than expected was Board 15.

Linda counted her cards face down as she should. She did the usual count but did not seem to get to the right number as she tried counting again.

As normally happens, when one player does not seem to have the right number, the others at the table did quick recounts though everyone else seemed to be happy that they held 13 cards.

Linda spread them out and counted yet again and was still not happy.

“I still have not got enough” she pleaded. “I still only have 13”.

“How many do you think you should have” asked one of her opponents?”

“15” came the reply. “Certainly I do not have enough for Board 15”.

                                            

Linda's card counter                                                     typical example of Linda's hand on Board 27

While Linda is obviously a fine player without any extra help, it does seem that Linda might do better when she plays Boards 32 or 36 than when she plays Boards 1 or 3. On Board 13, she has just enough cards to follow suit to all 13 tricks though on higher number boards, she has a choice of cards to play. It would be extremely bad luck if she could not contrive an opening hand on Boards 34 or 37.

So, you now have a small insight into “Expert Card Counting”. Holding a mere 13 is not really enough. Come to think of it, Linda is not always the speediest in making her decisions. With so many cards from which to choose on many boards, we now know the reason why.

Richard Solomon

Thanks to one of Linda's opponents, Allan Morris, who refused to give Linda two of his cards on Board 15 so that Linda could have her full compliment and who told the world on how our experts "count".

 

Go Back View All News Items