The Betel. Part 5. Strategy.

The Betel. Part 4. Scoring. <- previous part

Strategy

For a novice player, “the play” will be more difficult then “the bidding”. But if you play longer, you'll feel that “the play” is getting easier and “the bidding” is getting harder. In fact, at The Betel, the most important and the most difficult is bidding, especially exchange of “twins”.

Bidding is strategically complicated, because what happens after the exchange is very important: when you are going to play betel-shaped, you throw away high honors, but then the next one will get them and these honors can add him extra tricks. And the same is true when you intend to play a normal game: you throw out lower spots, so it gives the opportunity to play higher betel-shaped play to your opponents.

The bidding with exchange of twins can take several turns, so you can exchange even all your cards you received at the beginning. So at the end one player can have only the spots and the other can have all honors. The first one wants to play Grand Betel and the second one wants to play Grand Slam. Of course the second will win such a bidding because Grand Slam is on the highest level. So the first player cannot let this happen during the exchange of the twins.

Therefore, if you want to play betel-shaped, do not discard the highest cards during exchange if you know that opponents want to play normal plays. But they can bluff! So you too try to bluff! But to do it effectively you need to know who you play with, at what level the opponents play and what their temperaments are. That is why this game is so exciting! Everything interesting happens during the exchange of cards!

It is also worth noting that it is not always profitable to collect high honors or low spots. Sometimes it's worth building a long suit. But you need to know what suits the opponents have. And also them wants to know your suit. So don’t bid it!

Grzegorz GPS Świderski

PS. Related notes:

PS2. All parts:

The Betel. Part 4. Scoring. <- previous note

next note -> Narciarska karma wraca

Tags: gps65, Betel, play, bidding, strategy