Now you are in a Suit contract
You should be feeling some confidence now about the following aspects of suit bidding:
¨ knowing whether or not your hand is strong enough to open at the one level - 12 HCP or a little less with a decent long suit
¨ knowing which suit to open
¨ knowing what constitutes a fit with opener, how to evaluate your hand with a fit, how high to raise with such a fit
¨ knowing when to shift to a new suit and which one to shift to
¨ knowing when you should respond to opener in notrumps
¨ knowing how to make a rebid as opener that indicates your strength - mini, midi or maxi
¨ knowing how to make a rebid as opener that, if possible in terms of strength, indicates your shape - a fit with responder, balanced, single-suited, two- or three-suited
¨ making sure you get to game as responder when you also have opening values
Observing basic routine when playing trump contracts will always stand you in good stead:
1. Count your losers. Distinguish immediate losers (those which the defence can take the moment they gain the lead) from eventual losers (those which are currently protected by high card(s) or by trumps but will still end up as losers if you fail to do something about them in time).
2. Form a plan to eliminate excess losers by, for example, discarding them on extra winners.
3. Count your winners.
4. If you don’t have enough, form a plan to create more winners. The most common possibilities include establishing winners from intermediate honours or from small cards in a long side suit; finessing; trumping in the short trump hand, or in one hand (usually the weaker holding) when you have a 4-4 trump fit.
5. If you have enough winners and not too many losers, draw trumps as soon as possible even if this means losing the lead. After all, what can they do to you? Remember: 'Draw trumps immediately unless there’s a bloody good reason not to'.
6. Sometimes it is wise not to draw trumps immediately because there may be more pressing considerations that qualify as 'bloody good reasons':
¨ You may need to discard immediate losers before giving up the lead to the defenders in trumps.
¨ You may need to use some or all of dummy's trumps to ruff losers from your own hand.
¨ Some rather testing comments and questions are inserted in the text in this font. Don’t let them scare you. They merely offer a glimpse of the exhilarating climb to new heights that lies before you.
Board 1 Dlr N Nil Vul
NORTH
ª 3
¨ AKQ943
§ 963
WEST EAST
ª AJ95 ª Q87
© J432 © QT65
¨ 82 ¨ 765
§ K84 § AQ5
SOUTH
ª KT652
© A9
North opens 1¨ and over South's response of 1ª rebids 2¨ to show a minimum opening with 6+ diamonds (might only be 5 if desperate – with 5 diamonds and 4 hearts, say, in a minimum hand too weak to reverse). With no hope of game and a likely 8-card fit, South should pass with such a minimum responding hand even though it is possible they have a 5-3 spade fit.
East will probably lead ©5. No lead stands out. As declarer, you can count 8 tricks and only 5 losers - good news indeed.
But at matchpointed duplicate bridge it is never enough to sigh with relief and proceed to take your eight tricks. Always ask yourself: Are there any more winners possible?
A ninth can come from one of the most common methods of creating extra tricks - ruff a losing heart in dummy, the short trump hand.
Clearly, therefore, drawing trumps must wait. Win ©A in dummy - honour from the short hand - and then play a heart to the king. Now trump your last heart with one of dummy's diamonds.
Next draw trumps by overtaking dummy's last trump with a higher honour in hand and playing two more rounds. 9 tricks for +110 (3x30 + 50).
¨ Are you aware of the viciousness of matchpoint scoring? If you make your contract exactly and every other declarer makes an overtrick, your score is 0%. Not a bean for making your contract!
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