What to Bury
With a partner, bury fail points you could not protect and, if you can, the cards that leave you void in a suit, so you can trump it when it is led. Keep your trump. When you go alone, keep your fail aces instead, because alone an ace is a trick you win without spending a trump.
The two goals
- Bank points. A buried ace or ten is 11 or 10 points the defense can never take. A lone ten of a suit is the classic bury: in hand it falls to the ace, in the bury it is yours.
- Make a void. If you bury every card you hold in a suit, you can trump that suit the first time it is led instead of following with something that loses. A single A♥ buried does both jobs at once: 11 points banked and hearts gone.
When the two pull in different directions, a bury that voids a suit is usually worth more than one that keeps two small cards of it; a fat ace-and-ten bury still wins when no void is on offer. That is how our computer players weigh it.
Keep your trump
Trump is what wins tricks, and you picked because of it. Burying a trump for its points almost always gives away more than it banks. The exception is when the rules leave no other choice, which happens more often than you would think at call an ace: the call makes you keep a card of the called suit, and with few fail cards that can force a trump into the bury. Our computer players meet it in about one picker bury in six at those rules. When it does, never bury a queen or a jack: burying a small trump instead of a queen in those spots measured about 1.4 units better per case. If the ace or ten of diamonds is available, its 10 or 11 points in the bury measured slightly better than a small diamond.
About the numbers: they come from our own simulations, in which our strongest computer players play the same deals both ways and the results are compared. A unit is one defender’s base payment. They are measured at five-handed with the live table rules, against strong opponents, and they are averages, not guarantees for any one hand.
The call shapes the bury
At call an ace you call first and bury second, so plan them together. Call the suit you hold the fewest cards of, keep exactly one card of it, ideally a low one, and bury the rest of what you do not want. See which suit to call. If you call a ten, your ace of that suit cannot be buried at all; it is held back for the called trick.
Going alone changes everything
Alone, there is no partner to schmear onto your tricks, and every trick you win must be won by your own cards. A fail ace is a trick you take without spending trump, which matters more than its 11 points in the bury. In our measurements, lone hands that buried low fail cards and kept their fail aces did about 4 units better a decision than lone hands that buried the aces for points. Do not go further and bury a trump to save an ace, though: that measured worse. Trump first, then aces.
Worked examples
With a partner, call an ace. After the blind: Q♣ J♠ J♦ A♦ 9♦ 10♥ K♠ 7♠. Call hearts? You hold the 10♥, so it is callable, but keeping the ten as your only heart puts 10 points on the table when hearts are led. Better: call spades, keep the 7♠, bury the 10♥ and K♠. That banks 14 points and leaves you void in hearts and clubs.
Alone or with a partner, the same eight cards. After the blind: Q♣ Q♠ Q♥ J♣ A♦ A♥ 9♥ 8♠. With a partner, burying the A♥ and 9♥ banks 11 points and voids hearts. Alone, bury the 9♥ and 8♠ instead and keep the A♥: it is a trick the defense has to trump to stop, and every trump they spend on it is one fewer against your queens.
The jack of diamonds
At jack of diamonds you may bury the J♦. You are then alone and nobody else knows it, and the defenders may spend the hand playing around a partner who does not exist. Whether that is clever or reckless is one of the game’s open arguments; it is certainly a lone hand, so judge it as one.
Related
Play a hand
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