Then came the ill-fated hand to end all hands, shown in Figure Going against his better judgment, the pro allowed his partner to play the hand. The final contract was for nine tricks a staggering total for the young gentleman. When he saw what the young man had, the pro was ecstatic. The pro was going to win a bundle.
Unheard of! He returned to his seat to enjoy the hand and also to figure out how many pounds the game was in England, remember he was about to win. By this one stroke, the young man had blocked the club suit. The club suit in the dummy was dead, totally dead. The inexperienced young man had blocked the club suit and compressed seven club tricks into only two club tricks, which is something you would never do, right? Nod your head, for goodness sake. When the pro saw the mistake the young man had made, he took his remaining ten cards and tossed them out the window.
As always, you work with long suits, count your sure tricks, and play the high honors from the short side. Stay tuned. Throughout this chapter, as in Chapter 3, many figures show cards in only one suit. In the following figures, you see suits ideal for creating the extra tricks you may need. And again, I always make you South. See Chapter 1 for details about positions in bridge. This technique requires you to start by leading the suit from the correct hand.
But what if you have a king in a suit but no ace? If you lead the king, the opponent with the ace will zap it. In cases such as these, you need to lead toward the king, meaning that you need to lead the suit from the side opposite the king.
For example, if the king is in the dummy, start by leading the suit from your hand; if the king is in your hand, start by leading the suit from the dummy. Welcome to the world of the finesse, a technique for taking tricks with lower honor cards jacks, queens, and kings when your opponents have higher honor cards queen, kings, and aces.
Finesses are a fifty-fifty proposition. After all, a fifty-fifty chance is better than no chance. When you want to take tricks with lower honor cards, such as the king, queen, or jack, you need to lead from the side opposite the honor card you want to take a trick with. Think of leading from weakness toward strength. The following sections show you a few examples of finesses so you can get acquainted with this new kid on the block.
Sneaking a king by an ace Figure shows a classic finesse position. Your finesse works. Now check out Figure , which presents a scenario just as likely as the one in Figure Figure Finesses fail when the fourth hand West Q 10 7 holds the important missing honor.
Your finesse has lost. Successful finesses even out over the long haul. Sliding a queen past the king Queens are akin to kings. If you want to take a trick with a queen, do her a favor and lead toward her; she may be able to escape the clutches of the king. Figure shows you how the queen can elude the king. Figure shows another very common finesse involving the queen. Am I good to you or what? Figure A very common West finesse K 10 3 2 involves the queen and the ace.
Combining length with a finesse When you take finesses in suits that have seven or more cards between your hand and the dummy, meaning your side has more cards in that suit than your opponents known as length , you always have a chance of developing an extra trick or tricks with small cards, as Figure shows. You may as well think big when you have seven or more cards in the same suit between your hand and the dummy.
When a finesse fails, keep your cool. Try to avoid showing emotion during the play — otherwise, you give your opponents too big a high. Too Tall Tex never lost a finesse! West knew all about Too Tall.
Some finesses bear repeating Sometimes, the honor cards that you hold dictate that you lead from weakness toward strength twice. The only thing better than taking one finesse in a suit is taking two finesses in the same suit.
I show you two different situations of double finessing in the following sections. Finessing with the king and the queen I want to show you one particular situation that has a romantic pairing: the king and the queen. The cards in Figure show you a hand where you can pull off this stunt. Figure The king and the queen in the dummy West AJ42 have double the finessing power. Bridge nuts try to clean everything up, so some call this coupling a marriage, which is actually a pinochle term.
Forgetting the social aspects of the suit, you need to take as many spade tricks as you can. You prevail because West, second to play, has the missing honor. Finessing with a hole in your honor cards Figure shows you another suit where you can repeat your finesse to great success.
North Dummy Figure West The ace, 10 8 4 2 queen, and jack trap the king. You just took three tricks in the suit. It makes it much harder for the defenders to know which honor you are concealing. You should assume that those honors are split and that each opponent has one honor. You have a chance to play for split honors with the cards shown in Figure , a hand where you can take two finesses. See the previous section for the basics on finessing twice in a suit.
You normally attack suits with powerful honor combinations early. Your second finesse has worked. Of course they were split; I set them up that way! You have a little bonus in store for you, to boot. Of course, you were counting cards, so you already knew that. See Chapter 3 for tips on how to count cards. Chapter 4: Outsmarting Your Opponents at Notrump Play Taking a surefire finesse when an opponent shows out Finessing is a risky business. However, you can take some of the risk out of finessing by watching which cards your opponents play.
Finesses work best when you know who has the missing honors. Now you can be sure that your other opponent has all the missing cards in that suit, including any vital honor cards that you may be missing. Figure shows a suit where you can take a surefire finesse after your opponent shows out.
On the second lead of spades, East, who has no more spades, makes a discard shows out. N W E S East 5 South You AK4 Corralling a missing king The more honor cards you have in a suit between your hand and the dummy, the better your chances of taking all the tricks in the suit via a finesse. If you or your partner exhibits one or more of these tendencies, you may need help.
In extreme cases, you may need to enroll in F. Finesseaholics Anonymous. Once enrolled, no finesses until you graduate. But seriously, the idea when playing a hand is to avoid finesses in short suits, aiming instead to take finesses in long suits. The reason is that even if the long suit finesse loses, you frequently can establish sure tricks with small cards after the suit has been played several times. To corral the king, start the suit by leading an honor card from the side opposite the ace.
Then hopefully watch your left-hand opponent squirm. Figure gives you a chance to make West very uneasy. Have you ever been caught in a vise? Ask West. He knows how it feels right about now. What fun. You take five tricks. West is caught in the same pickle. Figure You can trap a missing king by West K87 leading from the hand opposite the ace. Always start the suit by leading from the side opposite the ace.
Hopefully, you have an honor card to lead. If not, and the dummy has them all, lead a low card intending to take a finesse. This story will have a happy ending if the second hand has the king. Cutting Communications: The Hold-Up Play When you play a notrump contract, the highest of the four cards played to the trick takes the trick. They have the opening lead and are also trying to set up tricks — perhaps by driving out one of your aces. The nerve!
Can you do anything about it? Yes, you do have countermeasures. Enter the hold-up play, a technique that may stop your opponents dead in their tracks. The typical hold-up play involves taking an ace on the third round in the suit your opponents have led. The idea behind the hold-up play is to try to void one opponent in this suit. A hold-up play usually follows this sequence: 1. Your opponents attack your weakest suit, in which you have the ace but no other significant honor cards.
You see that you have to drive out an opposing honor card to make your contract. To neutralize the suit that your opponents lead, you take the third round of the suit, allowing your opponents to win the first two tricks — your hold-up play in action. You drive out the opposing honor to establish your extra needed tricks.
Figure shows a hand where you can commit the perfect crime — a successful hold-up play. Chapter 4: Outsmarting Your Opponents at Notrump Play Opening your eyes to the opening lead When you play a hand, the opening lead is a very important card because it tells you a lot about what your opponents are up to.
Make sure to take a good look at the opening lead. For more information on the opening lead, see Chapter You should at least try to plot a countermeasure. Take a look at those spades again, which you can see in Figure The two key suits in this hand are spades and diamonds. Spades is the suit your opponents are trying to establish, and diamonds is the suit you want to establish. More contracts are lost at trick one than at all the other tricks combined!
Keeping that terrifying statistic in mind, take yet another look at those spades in Figure If you win the second spade, West remains with three winning spades and East with one spade. And if you win the third spade, West remains with two winning spades, and East has no more spades.
A flexible stopper is one you can take whenever you want to. Does it matter when you take the trick? It matters big time. What went wrong? Return to the scene of the crime the first trick and gaze once again at those spades. East has none. Now you can turn your attention to diamonds, arriving at the position you see in Figure West 10 9 10 8 7 Figure 6 Holding up K your ace averts disaster.
The finesse goes smack into West, the guy with the two winning spades. Only a finesseaholic makes such a play see the earlier sidebar for warning signs of this addiction. Dealing with the danger hand In bridge, when a particular opponent has winning tricks and can hurt you by gaining the lead, you call that opponent the danger hand.
For example, in Figure , after you win the third round of spades, West is the danger hand because West has two winning spades. Stay clear of West. East has no more spades, so East is the nondanger hand. In the following sections, I provide advice on handling several different danger hands. Voiding one opponent to isolate the danger hand When you make a hold-up play, your intent is to void one opponent in the suit that was led.
In this case, East is the danger hand because he has two winning spades and West has none. If you have to lose a trick, you hope that West wins that trick because West has no more spades to lead.
Figure The third hand, the partner of West the opening leader, is the danger hand. Aces are always flexible stoppers, but a king can be a flexible stopper if the ace has already been played. Figure A king is a flexible West stopper QJ after the ace is played. Figure shows you when not to hold up. You can make a hold-up play only when you have the highest card or the highest remaining card in the suit.
If you have enough tricks to make your contract, take them. With equal honors between the two hands, you may have to play two honors on the same trick overtaking one with another to wind up in the hand with the greater length. It hurts only for a little while.
Figure shows you what you have to do. At notrump, your goal is to take three spade tricks. Greed and miserliness will beat you. K Figure is another example of where stinginess strikes out. At notrump, you want to take four spade tricks. When all your honor cards or even spot cards are equals, you may have to overtake one with another in order to continue playing the suit. Just do it! The addition of wild trump cards can wreak havoc on your opponents. Among other things, I cover trump suits, counting losers, using extra winners to discard losers, and long suit establishment.
I also show you the proper sequence of plays, which allows you to take your winning tricks safely. In short, this chapter gives you your first taste of the wonderful powers of the trump suit. Understanding the Basics of Trump Suits In bridge, the bidding often designates a suit as the trump suit. When a suit becomes the trump suit, any card in that trump suit potentially has special powers; any card in the trump suit can win a trick over any card of another suit.
Because trump suits have so much power, naturally everyone at the table wants to have a say in determining which suit is declared the trump suit. Because bridge is a partnership game, your partnership determines which suit is the best trump suit for your side.
In the following sections, I show you the glory and potential danger of trump suits. For example, if you play a hand at a notrump contract, the highest card in the suit led always takes the trick see Chapters 3 and 4 for more information on playing at notrump.
If an opponent with the lead has a suit headed by all winning cards, that opponent can wind up killing you. She can just keep playing all her winning cards — be it four, five, six, or seven — taking one trick after another as you watch helplessly. Such is the beauty and the horror of playing a hand at notrump.
You see the beauty when your side is peeling off the tricks; you experience the horror when your opponents take trick after trick. After either you or your partner is void has no cards left in the suit that your opponents lead, you can just play any of your cards in the trump suit and take the trick. The hand in Figure shows you the power of playing in a trump suit. Chapter 2 has details on how to count sure tricks. On this hand, you and your partner need to communicate accurately in the bidding to discover which suit hearts, in this case is woefully weak in both hands.
When you both are weak in the same suit, you need to end the bidding in a trump suit so you can stop the bleeding by eventually trumping if the opponents lead your weak suit. In Figure , assume that during the bidding, spades becomes the trump suit and you need ten tricks to fulfill your contract. Instead of losing five heart tricks, you lose only two. When trumping can ruin your day Bear in mind that your opponents can also use their trump cards effectively; if they hold no cards in the suit that you or your partner lead, they can trump one of your tricks.
After you have the lead, you want to prevent your opponents from trumping your winning tricks. You need to get rid of their trumps before they can hurt you. This is called drawing trumps, which I show you how to do in the following section. A quick history lesson on bridge terms Trumping is also called ruffing. The words trump and ruff have a very interesting history.
Trump derives from Triomphe, a French game, which may have something in common with Trionfi, an Italian word used to describe tarot cards in the 15th century. Ruff derives from a variation of whist the predecessor of bridge , which was known as Ruff and Honors for reasons lost in the mists of time. Instead of allowing your opponents to trump your sure tricks, play your higher trumps early on in the hand. Because your opponents must follow suit, you can remove their lower trumps before you take your sure tricks.
If you can extract their trumps, you effectively remove their fangs. This extraction is called pulling or drawing. Drawing trumps allows you to take your winning tricks in peace, without fear of your opponents trumping them. The dangers of taking sure tricks before drawing trumps Send the children out of the room and see what happens if you try to take sure tricks before you draw trumps. The same misfortune befalls you if, instead of playing diamonds, you try to take three club tricks.
Imagine your discomfort when you see your opponents trump your sure tricks. They, on the other hand, are thrilled over this turn of events. Try to draw trumps as soon as possible. Then you can sit back and watch as your winning tricks come home safely to your trick pile. The joys of drawing trumps first To see how drawing trumps can work to your advantage, take a look at Figure , which shows only spades the trump suit in the hand in Figure Remember, your goal is ten tricks.
For more about counting cards, see Chapter 3. In the hand shown in Figure , you and your partner start life with nine spades between you, leaving only four spades that your opponents can possibly hold. You win the trick, and you know that your opponents have only two spades left.
Now they have no spades left no more trump cards. You have drawn trumps. You needed to take 10 tricks to fulfill your contract, and you in fact finished up with 11 tricks. Pretty good! In this section, keep in mind that if you have eight or more cards in a suit between your hand and the dummy, particularly in a major suit either hearts or spades , you try to make that suit your trump suit.
An eight-card fit eight cards in a single suit between your hand and the dummy gives you a safety net because you have many more trumps than your opponents: Your trumps outnumber theirs by eight to five.
Having more trumps than your opponents is always to your advantage. You may be able to survive a seven-card trump fit, but having an eight- or nine-card trump fit 69 70 Part II: Playing the Hand in a Trump Contract relieves tension.
The more trumps you have, the more tricks you can generate, and the less chance your opponents have of taking tricks with their trumps. You can never have too many trumps!
The fewer trump cards your opponents have, the easier it is for you to get rid of their fangs, oops, I mean trumps. In the following sections, I show you a variety of trump fits. The four-four trump fit During the bidding, you may discover that you have an eight-card fit divided four-four between the two hands. Try to make such a fit your trump suit. A four-four trump fit almost always produces at least one more trick in the play of the hand, as opposed to notrump.
At a notrump contract, the four-four fit in Figure takes four tricks. At notrump, when each partner has four cards in the same suit, four tricks is your max.
However, when spades is your trump suit, you can do better. You wind up taking a total of five spade tricks — the card you trumped plus four more high spades. You can get more for your money from this trump fit. Every so often you can take six or more trump tricks when you have a four-four trump fit!
Make keeping your eyes open for four-four trump fits a habit. Chapter 5: Introducing Trump Suits Other trump fits Eight-card trump fits can come in different guises.
Consider the eight-card trump fits in Figure Figure The many faces of an eight-card trump fit. Good bidding uncovers eight-card or longer fits, which makes for safe trump suits. There is joy in numbers. Counting Losers and Extra Winners When playing a hand at a trump contract, your strategy is to count how many losers you have.
If you have too many losers to make your contract, you need to look in the dummy for extra winners tricks that you can use to dispose of some of your losers. You may find this approach a rather negative way of playing a hand. But counting losers can have a very positive impact on your play at a trump contract. Your loser count tells you how many extra winners you need, if any. Extra winners are an indispensable security blanket to make your contract — extra winners help you get rid of losers.
In the following sections, I define losers and extra winners and show you how to identify them. I also explain when to draw trumps before taking extra winners and when to take extra winners before drawing trumps. Defining losers and extra winners When playing a hand at a notrump contract, you count your sure tricks as I describe in Chapter 2 ; however, when you play a hand at a trump contract, you count losers and extra winners.
Losers are tricks you know you have to lose. For example, if neither you nor your partner holds the ace in a suit, you know you have to lose at least one trick in that suit.
What exactly is an extra winner? An extra winner is a winning trick in the dummy North , upon which you can discard a loser from your own hand South.
Get ready for some good news: When counting losers, you have to count only the losers in the long hand, the hand that has more trumps. The declarer usually is the long trump hand, but not always. Recognizing immediate and eventual losers Losers come in two forms: immediate and eventual. Immediate losers are losers that your opponents can take when they have the lead. One of the best ways to get rid of eventual losers is to discard them on extra winners.
You help yourself by knowing which of your losers are eventual and which are immediate. Your game plan depends on your immediate loser count. Because identifying eventual and immediate losers is so important, take a look at the spades in Figures , , and to spot some losers. Assume in these figures that spades is a side suit any suit that is not the trump suit and hearts is your trump suit. Figure shows a suit with two eventual losers. However, after your opponents lead a spade which forces out your ace , your two remaining spades become immediate losers because they have no winning trick protecting them.
In Figure , you have one eventual spade loser. In Figure , you have two immediate spade losers. South You 82 73 74 Part II: Playing the Hand in a Trump Contract Notice that you count two, not three, spade losers — you count losers only in the long trump hand which presumably is your hand. Identifying extra winners Enough with losers already — counting them is sort of a downer. You can get rid of some of your losers by using extra winners.
Extra winners come into play only after you South are void in the suit being played. The stronger the extra winner suit that is, the more high cards it has , the better.
Yes, you can have extra winners in your own hand, on which you can discard a loser or losers from the dummy. Figure shows you two extra winners in their natural habitat.
South You 3 The cards in Figure fill the bill for extra winners because spades is an unevenly divided suit, and the greater length is in the dummy. Therefore, you can count two extra winners in spades. You just have to follow suit each time. The cards in Figure contain no extra winners, either. This spade suit has no losers and no extra winners.
Figure illustrates this point by showing you a hand where spades is your trump suit. Figure Be sure to count losers and extra winners so you have a plan for the hand. Before playing a card from the dummy, count your losers one suit at a time, starting with the trump suit, the most important suit. But as soon as the dummy comes down, try to curb your understandable eagerness to play a card from the dummy and do a little loser counting instead.
Because your opponents have only three spades, you should have no trouble removing their spades. A suit with no losers is called a solid suit.
You have a solid spade suit — you can never have too many solid suits. In this case, your own hand has three heart losers. But before you count three losers, check to see whether the dummy has any high cards in hearts to neutralize any of your losers. Count one extra winner in clubs. Next, you determine how many losers you can lose and still make your contract. In this case, you need to take ten tricks, which means that you can afford to lose three tricks.
Remember, each hand has 13 tricks up for grabs. If you have more losers than you can afford, you need to figure out how to get rid of those pesky deadbeats.
One way to get rid of losers is by using extra winners — and you just happen to have an extra winner in clubs. You can do absolutely nothing about losing these heart tricks — which is why you call them immediate losers tricks that your opponents can take whenever they want.
Immediate losers are the pits, especially if they lead that suit. Draw trump first. You wind up losing only three heart tricks — and making your contract!
Sit back and take the rest of the tricks now that you have only trumps left. Any time you can draw trump before taking your extra winners, do it. Taking extra winners before drawing trumps When you have more immediate losers than you can afford to make your contract, but you also have an extra winner, use that extra winner immediately before you give up the lead in the trump suit.
However, if you can draw trumps without giving up the lead, do that first and then take your extra winner as in Figure Figure shows you the importance of taking your extra winners before drawing trump. In this hand, your losers are immediate — if your opponents get the lead, you can pack up and go home.
You lose four tricks. What happened? You never got to use your extra winner in hearts because you drew trumps too quickly. When you led a spade at the second trick, you had four losers, all immediate. And sure enough, your opponents took them — all four of them. If you want to make your contract on this hand, you need to play that extra heart winner before you draw trumps.
The winning play goes something like this: 1. On the third heart you can discard one of your diamond losers. This play reduces your immediate loser count from an unwieldy four to a workable three. Now you can afford to lead a trump and give up the lead. After all, you do want to draw trumps sooner or later. If you play the hand properly, you wind up losing only one spade, one club, and one diamond — and you make your contract of ten tricks. But you have no choice.
You have to get rid of one of your immediate diamond losers before giving up the lead if you want to make your contract. When you have an extra winner in the dummy, you can play that winner and at the same time discard a loser from your hand.
See Chapter 5 for details on discarding losers on extra winners. On a good day, you find extra winners perched in the dummy, just waiting to take tricks for you. Unfortunately, those good days are few and far between. On most days, you need to set up your own extra winners in order to make your contract. I show you just how to establish extra winners in this chapter. The more honor cards between your hand and the dummy, the better. Remember that the honor cards are the ace, king, queen, jack, and Plus, the dummy holds three honors, a running head start.
See Chapter 3 for more information on driving out the ace. With equal honors you can just lead one of the equals without having to lead from weakness to strength. See Chapter 4 for details on leading toward a certain card. With both hands holding the same number of cards in the suit, neither hand runs out of cards in the suit before the other, which gives you no chance to discard losers. You may have to drive out two honors in the same suit before you can create any extra winners in that suit.
Take the cards in Figure as an example. Figure You can drive out some honor West cards to create an extra winner. Making sure you can reach your extra winners When your suit fills the bill for creating extra winners but your equal honors are divided between the two hands, play the high honor card from the short side first.
Doing so makes it easier to reach the extra winner s you create. Playing the high honor cards from the short side is a bit like unblocking a logjam; if you leave the honor in the hand with shortness, you leave the log in place and potentially create a fatal blockage.
Be a beaver — unblock those honors! If dummy regains the lead first in another suit, just take your two winning spade tricks. Nice unblock. Figure Create extra winners by playing the West high equal A honor s from the short side first. I also show you a desperation finesse. The good and the bad: Times to try and times to avoid finessing When you behold such a treasure as the items in the earlier list, you can create extra winners in that suit by taking a finesse, leading from weakness to strength, usually a low card from your hand with the intention of playing an honor card from the dummy.
But keep in mind that luck plays a role when taking a finesse. Check this out in Figure South You 43 85 86 Part II: Playing the Hand in a Trump Contract In Figure , you have the makings of an extra winner in spades because the dummy holds more cards than you, not to mention three honor cards. In this scenario, you not only create an extra winner, but your finesse also works. When you have only two honors in the dummy and no honors in your hand, it helps if the two honors are equals such as the queen and the jack or the king and the queen.
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