The Video Transcript:

Okay, spade suit management, passing to the right. This is an important thing that a lot of people forget because they waste an unnecessary card.

And when you’re passing in hearts and you’ve got to do something about a shorthanded queen, to use that vernacular, then you really have to consider what to do when you’re passing to the right as opposed to the other directions.

For example, let us suppose that you picked up your hand. You’ve gotten maybe you’re passing them. Well, the first thing you want to do is something about this shorthanded queen.

Ace queen two is a very weakly protected queen. You have the ace, but you’re not going to be able to stop the pushes, especially with only two guards.

First order of business is what to do about the queen. Well, if you pass the queen to the left, right, I’m sorry, if you pass the queen to the left and you keep the ace in front of her, what do you think is going to happen?

Well, if this person gets on the lead and this person gets on the lead and they start with the jack and you have to duck that with the two and then they continue with another spade, up comes the ace and ker-pow, you get blasted with a queen.

So we know that we shouldn’t have kept her with the ace. Kept, you know, sent her over to the left by herself. So if you’re passing to the left and you hold the king or queen in a small one, you have to pass them both. Well, that kind of wastes a nice pass.

Furthermore, when you’re passing two of them along to somebody, you’re giving them protection, but what else do you do? You don’t have any choice.

Ditto with the across pass. Here we have the same thing.

You don’t want to keep the ace because somebody leading through you again from the right is going to lead through your ace and the queen will be vulnerable.

But what happens when you pass to the right?

Well, something really nice happens because if a lead comes from here and let’s just say that he holds something like this and he has to play small, you have a free ride to the ace.

No problem. You can play it comfortably.

If this player leads a spade and the queen person, the person with the queen, ducks, you can go up with the ace in complete safety because you know the queen is on the right.

You don’t worry about anything. Okay, so again, if you’re passing to the left, you’re passing across and you have a short-handed queen with a high guard like the king or the queen, then you have to get rid of them both. Okay, but if you’re passing to the right, keep the king. He isn’t going to hurt you.

The only thing is that if you’re on the lead, you definitely don’t want to lead a spade because that will leave your king by itself. Pass to the right, pass just the queen if you have a high guard with her. Pass to the other directions, you got to pass both. And I think you’ll find that tip to save you a lot of points.