Inspecting cards at the end of the trick

The basic rules for playing to a trick is that you should play a card in turn and then only turn it over once all players have played and not before.

Until your side has played to the next trick, if you have not turned your card face down you can ask to see all the cards involved in that trick.

Until your side has played to the next trick and you have turned your card face down then you may only look at the last card you played. You must not show it to any other player. The purpose of this is to check if you have revoked. If your side has played to the next trick then any revoke that might have happened will have been established and thus cannot be corrected. Similarly with lead out of turn, once both sides have played to the last trick then any lead out of turn has been accepted and cannot be changed.

Under no circumstances should you look at any card played earlier in the hand.

It is considered bad form to lead to the next trick until all cards from the previous trick are turned face down. Confusion can occur over what cards has been played to a trick if cards from a previous trick are still face up.

What is a STRONG bid?

When you describe your partner's opening suit bid as strong, what does "strong" mean?

Very few people in Leicestershire play a strong 1♣️ or 1♦️. But if they did then it must be at least 13 HCPs.

For any other opening suit bid you must have one of the following:

• EITHER any 16+ HCP hand
• OR having 10+ cards and 13+ HCPs in two suits

Take these examples from a Coventry competition:

 AKQJ763 KQ 8 752 

This is NOT legal because although it has 10 black cards, it only has 10 HCPs in those suits

 

Where as:

 AT5 7 AKQT953 JT 

is legal because it has 10 cards in Spade and Diamonds and 13 HCPs in those two suits.

 

Note that the first example is NOT legal and has 15 HCPs, whereas the second example is legal but only has 14 HCPs.

Steve's rule of thumb is, "If you outbid me then I will double you". So if you are not prepared to double when you are outbid then it is probably not wise open it as strong bid even though it would be legal to do so.