Lesson 2(d) - Playing the hand to make your contract

Playing notrump hands

As declarer you should first count your sure tricks when dummy goes down - the aces, kings and other honours that are immediate winners.

If there are not enough to make your contract, you will have to devise ways of establishing extra winners.  It is normal to play first on the suit in which you are likely to establish the most tricks - often the suit with the most cards in the combined hands - even if it means losing the lead to the opponents. You can usually afford to let the defenders win a trick early in the play if they do not hold enough winners to defeat you at this time.

A useful guide to developing enough tricks to make your contract is to do your losing early, if there is a profit in it.

Generally it is a bad move to play on the suit that the opponents have led because this is usually their side's longest and strongest suit. When you have two or three suits that are equally long, then play first in the stronger suit, the one that contains the most honour cards. 

How to play your long suit

Play the high card(s) from the hand that has the least number of cards, the short hand, first. This avoids blocking the suit.  When you start winning tricks from the long hand, you will be able to take the maximum number of tricks possible in an uninterrupted way.

For example, imagine the following heart holding:

YOU                              DUMMY
♥ AK742                        ♥ Q9

The easiest way to cash your winners is to play first the queen - the honour in the short hand.  (Don't worry if the lead is in your own hand.  Simply play a low one from your hand across to dummy's queen.)  Then play the nine back to your ace and king.  If the opponents' cards are distributed 3-2, you will be able to take five tricks on the trot.

On the other hand, if you play the ace (or king) first and then a low one to the queen you will, at least temporarily, be stuck in dummy. You will be said to have blocked the suit.  You will have to return to your hand via another suit.  In bridge jargon you need to have an outside entry to your winning hearts.   And if you don't have that entry your winners will be stranded, waving forlornly at you from their desert island. 

Count the missing cards in long suits

When running off tricks in your long suits always follow this rule: first count how many cards you have between dummy and your hand. Deduct this number from 13 and you will then have the defenders' total card count in the suit.

Now as you cash your tricks, count the number of cards played by your opponents each round. You will then know if any small cards left in your hand, or in dummy, are now winners.

Board 1  Dlr:N    Nil Vul

                                  NORTH
                                  ♠ K6
                                  ♥ A74
                                  ♦ KQ83
                                  ♣ KQ76
WEST                                                        EAST
♠ 8532                                                       ♠ QJT94
♥ KQ92                                                     ♥ T83
♦ T4                                                            ♦ J75
♣ T83                                                         ♣ J2
                                 SOUTH
                                  ♠ A7
                                  ♥ J65
                                  ♦ A962
                                  ♣ A954

Bidding:         N          E       S         W
                       1NT       P     3NT

North shows a balanced 15-17.  South, holding a balanced 13-count, knows that notrumps is a good place to play and that their combined assets are 28-30, enough for game but not slam.  Thus she takes charge by jumping to the game contract of 3NT.

Hoping to establish winners in his long suit East leads ♠Q – top of a sequence, promising, against a notrump contract, ♠JT as well, or possibly ♠J9. (Without such a sequence e.g. Q9642, the fourth highest card is conventionally led, in this case the four.)

You take stock as declarer. There are nine sure tricks - two in spades, one in hearts and three in both clubs and diamonds.  Look for overtricks.

Which suit should you play on first? Ei­ther clubs or diamonds - they are the same length and equally strong.  In each suit you should be thinking: we have 8 cards and they have 5.

Now as the ace, king and queen are cashed, the defenders both follow on the first 2 rounds and their remaining card falls on the third round. Thus all their cards in the suit have gone and the last club and diamond will become tricks 10 and 11.

Make sure you notice what suit was discarded by the defender who had only a doubleton in the suit led.  If you play diamonds first, for example, West might decide to discard a club on the third round of diamonds.

Well done if, by counting the opponents' cards, you made two overtricks in your non-vulnerable game for a score of 5x30 + 10 + 300 = 460.