TIPS ON GOING ALONE
You all know how often Ive said that I will always go alone when trumped solid, if for no other reason than the challenge involved. My goal is to carry a hand with the ace high, and mark my words, it will happen. I hope some of you are there to witness it (if for no other reason than I may need verification of the deed).
Now, this is not always true if the situation is not right (position, score, many other myriad details) but in general, I love the idea because I never could turn down a dare. Me against the world....the solitary warrior facing the masses, ah yes, bring it on. But there is a right way and a wrong way to hold off the enemy when going alone.
Too often I have seen this gambit attempted, only to end in ignominious defeat because the cards fell all wrong or all the trump was in one hand, but there is a way to insure that going alone can be made easier.
Lets just give you a powerful hand and show you how easily it can turn to disaster......you have the top three swings, the queens of Clubs, spades and hearts, along with the jack of diamonds and the king and nine of trump. Looks pretty good going in, you must admit, but let me show you how playing it wrong can end up with you losing points.
You catch nothing in the blind (burying points in the blind can be a big help, as you all know) so you are forced to play with your dealt hand, but no problem, you should be able to carry the day with what yahoo gave you, right? Lets put you in seat #1 and the lead out is at seat #3, OK? Your opponent leads with a fail ace and #4 follows suite with fail, as does #5, leaving you with a decision to make.....should I make sure that I get this trick or should I take a chance and play the king? After all, there is only one player remaining who can possibly cut the trick behind me, so why not take a chance, right? (There is no real hard-and-fast rule pertaining to this, but generally, if there are a lot of points involved, Ill play the queen of hearts to insure maintaining control of the game, but this too can backfire, as youll soon see.)
For purposes of this demonstration, lets take it with the king and lose the trick to the #2 seat, who plays an ace on it. He leads fail back, which everyone dumps no-pointers on and you take it with the jack. And here is where most players would commit the cardinal sin of coming back with the power cards....playing the three big swings to remove as much trump as possible. The big queen catches nothing but air due to the opponents giving him no points at all, or maybe an occasional jack, OK? The second swing nets him most of the remaining trump and a seven or eight of fail from those players who are out of trump. So our hero leads the third swing and wipes out all the remaining trump, save that one pesky queen of diamonds. I seems that the #3 seat, who originally led fail, had four trump with the queen of diamonds high, and is lying in wait for one of your small trump to come sailing out of your hand, taking not only the trick, but all the big pointers which his partners had been saving for him. Adding the 38 points he takes on the last trick to the 25 that you lost on the first trick has just cost you the game and you would have bet your first-born that you were going to carry the day, right?
Lets examine where our hero went wrong, OK.......by leading the big swing first, he allowed everyone to unload meaningless trump that has no value to him at all. Everyone plays the junk at this point, and if they happen to be out of trump, you get what Paddy shot at from them. Nothing......nada.......stuminku!! Same thing happens when the queen of spades is led....you catch a couple of jacks, the seven and some more meaningless fail. You are busy running everyone out of trump, but meanwhile, old #3 over there is hoarding his queen and waiting in ambush. Had you lead the lowly jack of diamonds first, the #3 seat would have had to make a decision. "Do I take this trick and hope my partners can give me points, or do I let someone else do the heavy lifting here and throw points on the trick? Hmmm"......(you will be able to smell the smoke at this point). Either way, the picker benefits, right? If he lets the trick walk, he forces someone else to throw away power and ends up losing his queen to one of your power cards later. If he takes the trick, all he will usually get for his trouble is lowly trump or the small fail that #2 threw away. And he has removed the only obstacle to your taking the hand. What you have accomplished by this gambit is that now your top three swings will clean his hand of trump and allow you to take all the pointers with your lowly little nine. Is there a more glorious feeling than watching as your tiny little trump card sweeps the table of 30 or 40 points at the end of the hand? I think not.
Remember, having all that power at the beginning of the hand does you no good at all if you lose all the points on the last trick. Save the power cards for the middle of the hand and make them spend their power early, where it does much less harm. Playing top down is not always the best idea.
Remember what Greta Garbo always said "I vant to go alone" (or something like that.)
Happy hunting
Phil Hunt
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Letters to the Editor:
"Youse guys have no idea what youre talking about."
Arnie Quackenbush, Idonpayno, Texas
"I think youre wonderful.....will you marry me?"
Mrs. Gloria Stafonich, Sosyurold, Maine
"so far, Ive disagreed with everything youve ever said"
Zed Sodbuster, Eightnine, Tenn
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Once again, let me remind you that provies are the future of our great game of sheepshead and should be treated with extreme care. Provies have been known to explode with the slightest provocation and must be handled with kid gloves.
Thank you. The Editors
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This Weeks Provie Tip
"Hey kid!! Yeah, you. Why in the hell didn't you cut the called suite, idiot? How many times must I tell you, if you don't have the called suite, you must take the trick, understand? The next time you do that I'm calling AOL, getting your address and I'm gonna shoot your dog, you hear me? I may even drown your goldfish...so don't pizz me off again, you got it?? Ya dumb mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragger, you!!"
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As usual, look for your next copy of the Daily Schmear at newsstands everywhere.
