| Beginner's Korner -- Tip of the Month
Passes to the Right with the Queen of Spades
Approximately once out of every seven hands, you will be dealt the Queen of Spades with the Ace or King, and no more than two other Spades. (A five-card Spade suit with the Queen is safe; a four-card Spades suit with her Royal Majesty is suspect, at best). Normally, you would pass the nasty Lady with the Ace or King, and that would be that. (Of course, the "hold" hands would not allow any passing option.)
However, when the pass is to the right, and you have the same situation, you can pass the Spade Queen, and keep the accompanying Ace or King in your hand. Why is this? Well, if the left-hand opponent leads a Spade, you have nice comfortable play in 4th position. If the opponent across the table leads a Spade, and the person on the right (to whom you passed the nasty Lady) plays low, you can go up with your big Kahuna safely, -And if the right-hand player tries leading a low Spade, you can rise with the Ace or King. The advantage of keeping in the Ace or King of Spades, in this instance, is that you now have the option to pass another card -- perhaps a middle Heart or a big Diamond or Club. I have seen some players who were dealt the Doubleton A - Q of Spades in a right-passing situation display some incredible fortitude by passing the Queen (only) and keeping the singleton Ace of Spades!
Partnership Hearts
Hearts evolved from a Spanish card game called "Reverse," circa 1750. It was designed as a "cutthroat" game for individuals. Hearts was among the favorite card games in the U.S. during the later part of the nineteenth century. Only Euchre and Whist were more popular. In the original version of Hearts, there was no Queen of Spades penalty card, and no "Shooting the Moon." These variations were added during the early 1900's.
A partnership (or Team) Hearts variation was created in the 1960's, in the Far West, and was played on several college campuses. This was a radical departure from the standard "cutthroat" game. The members of Partnership (seated opposite) worked as a Team. In other words, their points were combined for each hand. Thus, the scores read "We and They," as in Bridge. You could Shoot the Moon together (one member of the partnership might take 12 Hearts, and another would take the Spade Queen and the other Heart) -- thus combining for 26 points. Therefore, it was always imperative that your team take at least one Heart per hand. When your side Shot the Moon, you would score zero, and the opps would take 26. Game ended at 100 points. There was lots of strategy and skill in this version. Nice and clean and easy to track!
When Hearts became a mainstay on the Internet, the Partnership variation was a problem, as the computer always maintained four separate scores. The modern version, a "hybrid" game -- to be sure -- was thus created in the late 1990's for Internet players. It then became necessary to manually track the combined totals for each team if a Partnership game was desired. Some interesting peculiarities were observed.
a. If your team Shot the Moon, it would have to be accomplished by one member of your team. If you and your Partner took all of the points separately, the results were 26 points garnered for your side -- a very bad thing!
b. If you or your partner did Shoot, the computer would still add 26 points to the scores of the other three players - thus dumping 52 points on the opponents, and 26 points on your partner! Sometimes Shooting would be a big disadvantage if the 26 points dumped on your partner ended the game and your side wound up with the most combined points!
c. It was possible for one member of a team to go out with 100 or more points, and still have his side win the game (as long as the opponents’ combined scores were greater than the team score of the player who did reach 100+ points).
Although a lot of fun, and very entertaining, Internet Partnership Hearts is still a flawed game. Sorry about that, folks, but that is the way it is. However, if the Master (Site) program could be changed to accommodate a "We / They" format, we would then have a Classic game. In many ways, this is akin to creating a "cutthroat" version of the game of Spades, in which all of the players participate as individuals.
Partnership Hearts -- Hand of the Year
Let’s assume that you are playing the Original version of the game, in which the partners can "Shoot" together. Look at this hand. Is it possible for North / South to Shoot the Moon with this layout? Note: the pass has been completed. | |
| You are allowed to peek at all 4 hands. Assume best play by everyone. (In other words, no "tanking," or helping the opponent to Shoot the Moon.) You are in the South seat. The Deuce of Clubs lead goes to King, Jack, and 6. Now you lead the 10 of Diamonds to the 7, King, and Jack. Your partner takes his Club Queen, as low spots appear. A medium Spade (the nine-spot) goes to your Jack. Now what? Can you make a Moon? Is the hand dead? Look for the answer in next month’s column.
"Live" Tournament Update
Check out the Grand Prix Site for information about "live" Hearts events.
http://www.grandprixtournaments.com
See you in April! | |
