How to Play a No Trump Hand

 In today's post, we are going to look at how to plan the play as declarer in a no trump contract. Let's start with this sample hand

North

South

North opened the bidding with 1 spade. South responded 1 no trump, because his hand is too weak to bid a new suit at the 2 level. North continues with 2 clubs. Now, South is free to mention one of his suits at the 2 level. There is an argument for bidding either 2 diamonds or 2 hearts. South is not expecting to bid again. South bids 2 diamonds, and North continues with 2 no trump. Since North has not promised anything stronger than a minimum opening bid, South passes.

The opening lead was the 9 of hearts. Now, as declarer, before you play a single card, you should stop to think about how you are going to make your contract. When planning the play for a no trump contract, the first thing you should do is count how many tricks you can take off the top. Now and then, it will be enough to make your contract, but usually not.

OK, if we just run our winners, we take 2 tricks in hearts, 1 in spades, and 1 in clubs. That's 4 tricks. We need 8 tricks to make 2 NT. Where are we going to find 4 more tricks? If you can get to your hand twice, you might get an extra trick out of clubs with a finesse. Maybe, maybe not.

The diamonds look much more promising. Once you knock out the ace, you'll be able to take 3 more tricks with the remaining honor cards. That get's us to 7. Where is the 8th trick?

You've got 7 cards in diamonds. If the remaining 6 diamonds break no worse than 4-2 the diamonds will be gone by the time you knock out the ace and take the high cards. Then, you'll be able to take 1 more trick with the remaining small diamond. That's all you need, and it looks promising. You'll know if it works before you run out of high cards. Suppose the diamonds break 5-1 or 6-0. Well, that sucks. Now you need to look somewhere else for your 8th trick.

Now, we can try the club finesse. You are already in your hand with the diamonds. If you still have the ace of hearts, you can finesse twice by playing a small card to the ten. As long as both the king and jack are not held by East, you will take an extra trick in clubs.

If a heart was returned after the opponents took the ace of diamonds, you will only have one chance to finesse the clubs. Lead to the queen and hope that West holds the king.

That's a pretty good plan. You will need to be very unlucky for everything to go against you. Now that you have a plan, you can play the king of hearts from dummy. You'll follow that up by leading the king of diamonds. 

Why not lead a small diamond? Think about what happens if an opponent hops up with the ace on the first trick. That opponent leads back a heart that you take with the ace. Now, you lead a diamond to the king on the board, and you can't get back to your hand to cash in the rest of your diamonds. Bummer!