tricks. While the number of tricks one feel one's partner will be able to win will vary in each situation, one should bid based on that assumption and not only on the cards in one's hand. On the other hand, it is also important to remember that one's partner will be using the same strategy in their bidding; and therefore, if one's partner bids 6, for example, one may not necessarily want to bid 8 simply because one have two cards of the proposed trump suit in one's hand. When confronted with a hand that is more-or-less even in two different suits, it is customary to bid on the suit with a higher point value. Card Counting When playing with 45 cards, the deck is composed of four suits with 11 cards each, and one Joker. In a suited contract (7, 8, and so on), the trump suit will have 13 cards, the suit of the same colour will have only ten, and the two suits of opposite colour will remain at 11 cards each. A simple strategy to bidding is to attempt to predict how the unaccounted-for trump cards (the ones one don't actually hold in one's hand) would be distributed among the remaining players, excluding the kitty, with all things being equal. In other words, if one hold seven cards of one suit it can be helpful to assume that the remaining six trump cards are distributed evenly among the remaining three players (two each and none in the kitty). Doing so can provide a basic idea of how many times one's opponents will be able to follow suit in each of the four suits. Discarding the kitty If one are successful at bidding a suited contract and are awarded the kitty, a basic strategy of discarding is to eliminate as many non-trump suits from one's hand as possible, thus giving the most opportunity to use trump cards. However, discarding as many suits as possible is only a basic strategy, and should be met with some qualifications. First, in most contract bids it is beneficial to keep an ace of any non-trump suit, as with all things being equal each player will with high probability have at least two cards of any given non-trump suit, making the ace of that suit a winning card. Second, it can also be effective in some circumstances to intentionally keep the king