Card By Card
Posted by fradric on October 16, 2007
My opponent draws from the deck and discards the 6 of hearts from his hand. I draw the 2 of clubs from the deck and discard the Queen of clubs.
My opponent draws from the deck and knocks with 6. I lose a net of 5 points on the hand. Supposing I had held on relentlessly to my Jack-10s of diamonds, holding out for the 9 or Queen which failed to show up? I would have lost 15 points instead of 5 on my opponent’s knock. What’s more, if I had thrown him wild cards, he might have been able to knock even sooner and inflict a greater loss on me, or he could have ginned.
Score at the end of the fourteenth hand: Wander 178 Opponent 126 
Hand Fifteen
I deal the cards and turn up the 9 of hearts as the knock card. My hand is the following:
My opponent refuses the up card, and I in turn pass it up. My opponent draws from the deck and discards the King of clubs. I draw the 10 of clubs from the deck and discard the 8 of hearts, which is partially protected by the 9 of hearts. With a meld and other good possibilities already in my hand, I see no reason to make a more defensive play than this.
My opponent draws the 9 of diamonds from the deck and discards it. I draw the Queen of spades from the deck, which gives me three Queens. I discard the 10 of clubs.
My opponent picks from the deck and discards the Queen of hearts, giving me the fourth Queen. I knock with a count of 7. My opponent has the fourth 5, which he lays off on my 5s, and I win 14 points net.
Under less favorable circumstances I might have opened with a safer discard—the Queen of clubs— and would have probably followed it with the Queen of diamonds. The way I played the hand worked out satisfactorily, because a more defensive tack would have cost me the Queen spread.
Don’t speculate that this is mere good fortune. As I have pointed out before, you have to gear your play to the over-all situation and be prepared for continual changes. In this hand, since my opponent did not pick up any of my discards, there was no reason to digress from the strong play I started out with.
The aim of the expert player is always to stay in control of the game. Not only does he determine his own style of play, but he can utilize his plays to force his opponent into a pattern of play that wifi work to his benefit. In other words, vigorous play on my part can force my opponent to play strongly also, even though he may not be in as good a position to do so as I am. On the other side of the coin, defensive play by me can force him to slow down even if he is sitting there with beautiful cards.
