29 Card Game Strategy and Tips

Three things to remember

• Jacks and 9s are everything. Twelve of the 28 points are Jacks (3 each), and they are the top card of their suit. A 9 is worth 2 but is beaten only by its Jack.
• The other team needs very little. Against a call of 16 they need only 13; against 20, just 9. Every point you bid above what you need is a risk.
• The hidden trump is a weapon for both sides. The caller knows it and nobody else does, so the caller's team plays with information the opponents don't have, until someone asks to see it.

How much to bid

You bid on only four cards, so you are bidding on your hand and on what your partner might hold. A good rule of thumb, the one the game's bots use:

1. Find your best suit: the one with the most cards, counting its points as a tie-break.
2. Count your strength: your card points, plus 1.5 for every card of the best suit after the first, plus 1 for each Jack.
3. Your highest safe bid is 14 plus half your strength (rounded down). Below 16, pass.

Bid the lowest amount that keeps the call, not your maximum. In the Bangladesh duel, if you are in the senior seat, say Ditto rather than raising: it keeps the call at the same price.

When the minimum bid is higher than 16 in your group, add about three quarters of a point to your limit for each point above 16, or every deal ends with everyone passing.

Compare two opening hands

A concentrated hand: 6 card points + 3 for two extra spades + 1 for the Jack gives strength 10. The heuristic suggests a ceiling of 19. Start with the lowest bid needed; the remaining cards and your partner are still unknown.

A weak hand: 0 card points + 1.5 for the extra club + 0 Jacks gives strength 1.5. That suggests 14, below the usual minimum of 16: pass. This is a heuristic, not a guarantee, and custom rules can change the decision.

Choosing the trump

• Pick your longest suit, and among equal lengths the one with more points. Length matters more than points: with three trumps you will usually still hold one when the opponents start cutting.
• If the trump is chosen from your own cards (a house rule), put your strongest card face down: it can't be drawn out before the trump is shown, and it wins once it is.
• The seventh card is a rescue, not a plan. Call it only when your best suit is a lone card, or two cards with at most one point. In simulations, from a pair of decent cards upwards, choosing your own suit did as well or better, and the seventh card often gets the deal thrown in.

When to Show Trump

When you can't follow suit you may ask for the trump, but then you must play a trump if you have one. So ask only when it pays:

• Your partner is winning the trick? Don't ask. Throw your partner points instead, a 10 or an Ace you can't otherwise use.
• An opponent is winning a trick with points in it? Ask, and win it with your lowest trump that wins.
• An opponent is winning a trick with nothing in it? Usually just discard your lowest card. Showing the trump early helps the caller as much as you.
• You're the caller? Keep the trump hidden as long as it helps you: while it's hidden, the opponents can't trump your winners. Show it yourself when you need your trumps to take a big trick.

Remember that the trump must be shown by the end of the eighth trick, or the deal is thrown in and nobody scores.

Playing the tricks

Following suit

• If your partner is sure to win the trick, play your highest-point card of the suit: feed the points to your team.
• If an opponent is winning and you can beat them, win with your cheapest winning card.
• Otherwise play your lowest-value card and save the points.

Leading

• Lead your Jacks. A Jack is the top of its suit: it takes the trick and usually draws a point or two.
• Don't lead a lone 9, Ace or 10 into a suit whose Jack hasn't been played: you're handing them points.
• As the caller, once the trump is shown and you hold most of the trumps, draw trumps by leading them, so the opponents can't cut your winners later.
• Keep track of which Jacks and 9s have gone. In each suit, the highest card left is a sure winner.

The Pair

If you hold the King and Queen of trumps, show the Pair as soon as you're allowed. For the caller's team it can lower a call of 19 or more by 4; for the opponents it raises the caller's target by 4, often enough to beat the call outright. Holding it back gains nothing, and you lose it if one of the cards has to be played.

When to Double

• Double a low call when you hold two Jacks in your first four cards. In simulations, an opponent with two Jacks broke the call about two times in three.
• With one Jack and some points, it's close to a coin flip (51–56%): only for the brave.
• As the caller, Redouble only with room to spare: when your hand was worth at least 2 points more than your call. A caller doubled by two Jacks with only 1 point of room failed about 60% of the time.

Single hand: almost never

A single hand wins 3 points, but you must take all eight tricks with no trump. Take it only when every card you hold is a sure winner. In 100,000 simulated chances, players who went alone only with a certain 8 out of 8 made every one; with a single card that could lose, only 48% were made, and on average it cost points.

Practise against the bots

The fastest way to get better is to play many deals. In the game, the bots play at three levels: Easy forgets earlier tricks, while Normal and Hard remember every card played and who is out of which suit. Try a few deals on Hard and watch how they bid.

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