This is another game idea about strategy.  If you’re not interested in strategy, come back next week for something different.

  I enjoy the once popular card game known as Bridge.  I don’t play it well, largely because I don’t play it often.  It is difficult to find people interested in play.  My parents play, but my wife finds the game too complicated so we don’t have a foursome.  Still, I read Bridge columns whenever I see them, play out the demonstration hands in my head in search of how the contract could be achieved, and think about the various strategic lessons involved.

  There is one lesson I’ve read that has stuck with me.  I don’t know whether I’ve read it more than once, or whether having read it once years ago I’ve always remembered it.  It is a critical bit of advice for all strategy games in which there are any elements unknown to the player:  If you can win only if the cards fall one way, play as if that’s how they fall; if you can lose only if the cards fall one way, play as if that’s how they fall.

  Let us suppose that you’re holding the Ace, King, and Jack of Spades, but you know that one of your opponents has the queen; and let’s suppose that you absolutely must make that Jack good to make your contract.  One way to do this is called a finesse.  You lead a low spade from the other hand (in Bridge, the person who is trying to make the contract plays both his hand and his partner’s hand, called the dummy and laid on the table face up for everyone to see) and wait for the player on your right to follow suit.  If he plays the Queen, it’s all over–take it with the King, and your Ace and Jack are good.  But if he plays a low card, this is where you can finesse:  you can bet that he’s got the Queen, and play the Jack.  Of course, if the player on your left has the Queen, you just lost the Jack, and you went down; but if the only way you could win was to make that finesse good, if the only way you could win was to play the player on your right for the Queen, then you had to play as if the Queen was there, because otherwise you would lose.

  Of course, this cuts the other way as well.  If the only way you can lose is if the player on your left has that Queen, and there’s a way you can force him to give it up, do that.  One way to do that is what’s called a free finesse.  This is a lot tougher to manage.  You’ve got to keep play going until you know that the player on your left has nothing left in his hand except Spades.  Then you’ve got to give him a trick, so that he has to lead to the next one.  This means he will have to lead either the Queen or another Spade.  If he leads the Queen, you take it with the King.  If he leads another Spade, and the player on your right doesn’t come up with the Queen in his turn, you can take the trick with the Jack, since you’re the last to play to the trick.

  There is a subtle difference between a lay of the cards that affords you only one way to win and one which threatens you with only one way to lose.  If you can recognize which any particular hand presents, you’re a long way to playing Bridge well.

  This is not a Bridge column.  It is a role playing game column.  Role playing games rarely use cards, and in those that do strategic card play of the sort envisioned by Bridge is not usually included.  Yet there is something in the analogy of the lay of the cards, the deal of the deck, that relates quite well to what we do during play.  As a player, there are always bits of the situation that I don’t know.  There is a level at which the game is a challenge, a puzzle to solve, an obstacle course to overcome.  As I face it, one of the steps to which my mind will frequently return is examining the options, considering what the unknowns might be.  For everything I don’t know, there are a limited number of possible realities (fictionally speaking, of course).  It may be a much greater list than the possible lay of the cards in Bridge; yet it is still limited, and even if I cannot identify every possibility I can with care and thought find the major ones, and prepare for them.  This, then, is where the advice finds its home.

  It is easy to come up with examples from card play to illustrate the concept; it is more difficult to illustrate in the more complex world of role playing strategy.  But perhaps the abstract can be clarified by translating to the abstract.  That is, if the idea of the lay of the cards has not inspired you, perhaps we can put it another way and bring it across.

  If you have ever heard yourself say, the only way we could lose is if, you needed the second half of the instruction presented above.  That if could be anything.  It could be that the villain has a secret weapon, or a contingent of guards within hearing.  It could be if there is a magic spell protecting the treasure, or a security device you can’t defeat with what you’ve got.  It could even be if the weather might turn against you.  The point is that that one if is the weak spot.  It is the one thing that can cause you to lose.  If you can spot that, if you can see the one potential flaw in your plan, the one point which would cost you the prize if it happens to be a certain way, know that the referee certainly has seen that, too.  Before you move, you should either determine that that which you’ve identified as potentially fatal is not the way it is, or determine how to counter that one problem, to shore up that one weakness.  You need a defense against the weapon or a way to stop the guard, a way to overcome the magic or security system, a contingency plan for foul weather.  Don’t leave that one hole in the plan without at least making an effort to patch it.

  On the other side, you might have heard yourself say, we can’t win unless.  That’s the first half of this Bridge column advice.  Again, the unless can be as diverse as finding the villain alone, or that the treasure is in a particular room, or that the guard on duty will be someone you know.  If you can’t win without a certain fact being true, then you have to play with the hope that it will prove to be true.  In this regard, most referees don’t create impossible quests, so unless you’ve missed something you should have noticed, it’s probably the case that things will be the way you hope, if you’ve analyzed the situation aright.  Perhaps you will be wrong; perhaps the villain won’t be alone, or the treasure will be somewhere else, or the guard will be a stranger.  In that case, you lose.  Note, however, that your alternative was to give up without trying, and that is a loss in just about anyone’s analysis.

  So as you analyze your options, keep in mind these two principles.  Those things that if true will defeat your plans must be rendered impotent; those things which if false will prevent your success must be made true.  Your odds of winning will increase significantly as you cover these.

  Next week, something different.

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M. Joseph Young is co-author of Multiverser and Vice President for Development at Valdron Inc.  His many contributions to online literature are indexed for convenience, and he looks forward to discussing these things by e-mail or on our Gaming Outpost forums.