Last week I went though how to plan the play of a no trump contract when you are declarer. This week we will look at a suit contract. When planning a no trump hand, we started by counting winners--tricks that we could take right off the top. When planning the play of a suit contract, we count losers. The reason for the difference is that in a no trump contract, no one can take your winners away from you. You can cash them in whenever you want. In a suit contract, you need to be concerned about the opponents trumping your winners. Let's look at a hand.
South opens with 1 heart. North responds 2 hearts, showing 6-9 points with adequate trump support. South adds her 19 points to North's minimum 6 and comes up 1 point shy of game. I wouldn't criticize South for just bidding game, but this South player is not that aggressive. She invites game with 3 hearts. North is on the top of the range for his bid, so he accepts the invitation and bids 4 hearts.
The opening lead is the 2 of diamonds.
Now, declarer looks at her hand. It is important to count losers from the viewpoint of the hand that has the longest trump holding. That is usually the declarer's hand. We start by looking at the trump suit. We expect to need 3 rounds to pull the 5 outstanding trumps. They might break 4-1, but they will break 3-2 more often. We should expect to lose at most one trump. If the queen is in the East hand, we won't lose any. Now, we go on to the side suits.
There are no losers in spades. There might be a loser in diamonds. If the queen of diamonds is in the West hand, we can finesse and avoid that loser. Clubs are a problem. It looks like 3 losers in clubs.
OK, let's assess. We can afford to lose 3 tricks. There might be 1 in hearts, 1 in diamonds, and 3 in clubs. What is the plan for losing 2 fewer tricks? There are the two queen finesses. If they both work, we are done, but that will only happen 1 out of 4 times. Still, it might work.
What is the backup plan? Can we ruff a losing club in dummy? Not likely. We would need to do that before pulling 3 rounds of trumps and after playing 3 rounds of clubs. That plan is too risky.
We have two 7-card side suits. If either of those break 3-3, we will have an extra winner with the 4th card in that suit. That's an extra chance.
Let's stop to think about the first trick. If West was leading away from the queen of diamonds, we could try the finesse right off the bat by playing the jack on the first trick. That's a possibility. Suppose we just duck on the board and play the 6. If East holds both the 10 and Q, he will play the 10. If he holds the Q without the 10 he will probably play the Q. If he holds just the 10, he will play the 10. Either way, we take the ace. If he holds neither, he plays small and we take the first trick with the 9. No matter what happens, we lose at most one diamond and set up an extra winner in the dummy. I like that idea.
In this case, East held the queen, but not the 10. He plays "third hand high" and plays the queen. Declarer takes the ace, and there are no losers in diamonds. We have a good chance of getting an extra diamond winner on the board if the 10 falls after cashing the K and J. One loser erased. An extra winner is probable.
Now, we need to decide when to pull trump. The rule is that you should pull trump right away unless there is a good reason not to. A good reason not to might be to ruff a loser in dummy before dummy runs out of trumps. There are a few other reasons, but that is the most common one. That reason doesn't apply now, so we are going to pull trumps. We want to finesse for the queen, so we'll need to get to the board. Since declarer holds both the AK, let's pull one round of trump right away with the ace. Who knows? Maybe an opponent holds the singleton queen. We'll still lose a trump trick if that happens, but it makes the play easier.
Both opponents follow suit with small trumps. Now, we prepare for the heart finesse. Lead to the ace of spades. You would be very unlucky if this trick gets trumped. It would mean that one opponent held all 9 of the outstanding spades.
At this point, many beginners would think, "Hey, I can trump some spades, now!" Don't do it. You are going to win tricks with the small trumps in your hand no matter what. Trumping the dummy's losers doesn't gain you anything. It can cause harm, though. If you run into a bad trump break, you may not have enough trumps left in your hand to pull the opponents' trumps. We are going to stick with the plan. Lead a small heart intending to play the jack unless East comes up with the queen. He doesn't. He plays a small heart. You play the jack from your hand, and West plays the queen. Bummer.
West returns a small spade. You play a small spade from the board, and East comes up with the king. I just told you not to trump in the long hand. Here, you can afford it. There is only one trump out in the opponents' hands, and you want to eliminate it. You have 3 trumps left in your hand. This isn't dangerous. Go ahead and trump the spade. If you were still worried about pulling trump, you might choose to discard one of your losing clubs on this trick. The opponents will continue leading spades and you'll start to worry about them ruffing in on a spade. It could get painful for you.
OK, you have taken the spade return with a trump in your hand, and there is still one trump out. You pull it with the king and discard a club from the board.
Let's reassess. You've only lost 1 trick, and you can afford to lose 2 more. You've still got 3 club losers in your hand. We'd like to set up the 8 of diamonds in dummy. One possibility is that the 10 will fall after playing two more rounds of diamonds. That would happen if the diamonds break 3-3 or that they break 4-2 with the 10 being with the doubleton. If you just want to play for that, I can't blame you. However, we can use some information from the first trick to be almost guaranteed to take 4 diamond tricks.
Remember that East played the queen on the first trick. If he held both the 10 and the queen, he would have saved the queen and played the 10 on the first trick. The jack is in dummy, so he knows the 10 won't be taken with anything less than the ace. He didn't play the 10, though. He played the queen. Therefore, West must hold the 10. Not only that, West's opening lead of the 2 suggests that she started with 4 cards in diamonds. The 2 would be a 4th highest lead. She would also lead the 2 from a10-x-2 tripleton, but in any case, she is marked with the 10. If she started with 4 cards to the 10, you would be sorry if you played for it to drop.
So, we lead the 9. If East covers with the 10, we take with the jack and the 8 is a good trick, now. If East ducks, we count on West making the logical play on trick 1 and duck on the board. We expect our 9 to win. Now, lead the 3 of diamonds and repeat the finesse. If West ducks again, you play the 8 from the board. In any case, you end up on the board with an extra winner in diamonds that you can play while you discard a losing club.
Next, you lead to your ace of clubs and happily lose 2 more club tricks. Contract made.
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