Blum on Bridge Good Habits
	The most complimentary words my partner could tell me before the cards are dealt are "I trust you." All too often we want to fly solo, forgetting that across the table is someone who wants to depend upon you to make the best decision possible. Most of us have that fervent desire to win, but sometimes it becomes quite difficult to keep in mind that it takes two to Tango. Let me give you a recent example. I opened one spade holding AQ1098-J-AK9-AQ107. My excellent partner bid 1NT, in our system a forcing bid. Now any sane person would simply jump to three clubs to show a strong hand, but not good old Bob. He decided to go into outer space and take on the world by himself. I made the dastardly bid of 3NT. My trusting partner, knowing I would "never" make this call with a singleton, reluctantly passed even though she held three spades in her hand. Having even distributed she rightly thought that no-trump would give us a better score than spades. I'm sure you already know what happened. The opening lead was a heart from five of them and despite the fact my "trusting" partner held four small hearts, the opponents gobbled up the first five tricks to set me. Everyone else in Naples, Marco, Bonita, and Mars were in four spades making five. Remember, 80 percent of the time you take a flyer you will lose. I'm going to summarize in no particular order some of the rules you should follow in virtually every hand. Most know to lead top of a sequence, king from KQJ, queen from QJ10, etc. However, it is most important that third hand after opener leads a small (spot) card should play the bottom the sequence, jack from KQJ, queen from KQ, ten from QJ10, etc. Why? You make the opening lead of the four. Dummy shows with a couple of spot cards. Pard plays the king and declarer wins the ace. Who holds the queen? By pard following the above rule you know declarer holds the queen as partner would have played it if he held KQ. A habit declarer should automatically get into is after lho leads small (dummy having only spot cards) and rho plays the ten, jack, or queen declarer must play the ace if he holds AK. The defenders won't know who has the king. However, should declarer mistakenly play the king all know he also has the ace for had it been held by rho would most likely have played it to win the trick. Up the line bidding should become as natural as driving your automobile. Assuming you hold no five-card suit with one important exception bid your four-card suits beginning with the lowest (up the line). Holding four diamonds, four hearts, and four spades open one diamond. Holding four clubs and four spades open one club. The one exception is if you hold both four-card minors open one diamond. The reasoning will become obvious by example. Holding 6-A432-A764-AK63 If you open one club and partner bids one spade, you don't want to bid 1NT like the weird guy in paragraph one. By doing so you would have to bid a higher-ranking suit at the two-level, but that's a reverse showing a powerful hand. In order to avoid the problem, open one diamond. After partner's one spade response you can easily bid two-clubs, a lower ranking suit. It is true that by bidding two clubs partner may visualize your opening diamond suit to be five cards, it is a very small lie that can be corrected by you later in the auction. Because today we only open five-card or longer major suits the rather common holding of two three-card minor suits arise with no five-card major, something like K53-A864-AK8-432. Always control yourself and open one club. Getting into this habit helps partner to better read your distribution. He will think you either have four diamonds or if you only have three you must have both four-card majors. Think about it. Aint it great? Yes, you experts. He could be five-four or longer in the minors, but until that is later shown, it doesn't exist. A cardinal rule that I've discussed in the past is "once one of the partners has made a limit bid the other partner becomes Captain of the hand." Also "a limit bid should be made by one of the partners as soon as possible." A limit bid has a point range of five points or less. Opening 1NT announcing 16-18 hcps is a perfect example. Opener's rebid of his suit at the two or three-level limits his hand to a high of 15 points in the first instance and between 16-19 in the second. The Captain of the hand may pass any of those bids, invite the limit bidder to game, or go directly to game or slam. The limit bidder can bid again only if the Captain asks or demands he do so. Should the Captain raise the opening 1NT to 2NT he invites opener to bid again. If he bids two-clubs, Stayman, he demands opener to bid again, and finally should the Captain bid a 3NT game, the opening limit bidder must pass.