Declarer Play and Defence with Trump Contracts YOUR BASIC APPROACH PLANNING THE PLAY AS DECLARER IN TRUMP CONTRACTS The general plan in no-trumps is to count your winners and if not enough, play the suit which will bring in the extra tricks needed. In a trump contract, it is better to count your losers and with more losers than you can afford, plan a way to eliminate some of those losers. When counting losers, count them from your own hand but take into account high cards in dummy which can cover your losers. For example. You Dummy A K 6 8 7 2 You have one loser. Dummy cannot cover that loser. A K 6 Q 7 2 You have one loser. Dummy s Q covers that loser. 9 8 3 K Q J 4 You has three losers. Dummy can cover two losers. When you do not have too many losers, it is usually best to draw trumps at once. When you have more losers than you can afford, the most common ways of eliminating them is to ruff losers in dummy OR discard losers on extra winners in dummy. General Approach a. With a strong outside suit, draw trumps as soon as you can then play your strong outside suit. Discarding losers on these winners. b. With a different shortage in each hand, choose to use your trumps to ruff out the two suits. Ruffing losers in dummy The most common problem in a trump contract is whether to play trumps at once or whether to delay trumps. If you need to ruff losers in dummy, do not draw so many rounds of trumps that dummy is left without enough trumps to ruff those losers.
Examples of the techniques referred to above a. Strong outside suit Declarer A K Q 5 3 A 9 8 2 J 8 10 7 Dummy J 9 8 4 7 3 A K Q 7 6 A 4 Contract: 6 Spades Lead: K of Clubs Here you have a strong outside suit (Diamonds). Win the opening lead with the Ace of Clubs. Draw trumps immediately then play out the diamonds discarding declarer s losers on the long diamonds. b. The Cross Ruff Declarer A K Q 7 6 A 9 8 2 J 8 4 7 Dummy J 10 9 8 7 A K 6 A 9 8 4 Contract: 6 Spades Lead: K of Clubs Here you have shortages in Hearts and Clubs and no strong outside suit to use for discards. Win the opening lead with the Ace of Clubs. Cash the A and K of Diamonds. Lead the 4 of Clubs and trump it. Lead the Ace of Hearts then trump the 2 of Hearts. Continue trumping clubs and hearts and take two tricks with the Ace and King of Spades. You only lose a diamond trick at the end.
OTHER ASPECTS OF DECLARER PLAY IN TRUMPS 1. How to count the missing cards Once you gain experience you will want to count how many cards have gone in each suit and how many are still held by the opponents. At first, concentrate on just your longest combined suit, usually your trump suit, or on the two longest combined suits. Once you can count those correctly, you can extend your skill to all the suits. Some players count out a suit this way : Four went on the first round and three have gone on the next round and dummy has two and 1 have two, so take all that away from 13 and there are still two missing. This approach is not best since it requires about five steps and an error at any stage will mean you have the wrong answer. Also your concentration will wane if you have to keep doing so many sums. A more efficient method is to work out as soon as dummy appears how many cards the opponents hold in your two longest suits. If dummy has 3 and you have 5, you know that they started with 5. Then you need concentrate only on the cards that they play without worrying about how many have gone and how many you have left. If they began with 5 and they play one each on the first round, they have 3 left, 5 minus 2, one simple step. If they both follow to the next lead, there is only one left (3 minus 2). If dummy started with 6 and you started with 1, then the opponents began with 6. If they follow to the first lead, they must have 4 left. If they both follow to the second lead, there must still be two out. If one opponent shows out on the third round of the suit, the other opponent still has one card left in that suit. You can also deduce that the missing cards originally divided 4-2. 2. How to work out where the missing high cards are located An excellent habit to develop is to count dummy s HCP and add your own as soon as dummy appears. By deducting from 40 (the total HCP in the pack) you know how many HCP the other two players have between them. If there has been any opposition bidding, you can often place the missing high cards. These are some useful principles: Assume that a player who has opened has at least 12 HCP Assume that a player who has not opened has less than 12 HCP. If one opponent opened and the other did not respond, assume that the responder has less than 6 HCP. Assume that a one-level overcaller has at least 8 HCP and a two-level overcaller at least 10 HCP. Assume that a player who made a takeout double has at least 12 HCP
3. Keep count of the missing trumps It is important to keep an accurate count of the trumps and to be aware of how many are left against you. How to keep track of the trumps i.e. the cards played in a particular suit was discussed in paragraph. 1 above... 4. When to draw the last trump If you are drawing trumps and one trump is still missing, play as follows: a. If it is lower than yours, it is a good idea to remove it. Otherwise they may score a trick with that lower trump by ruffing one of your winners b. If it is higher than yours, it is usually sensible to leave it out. It is a trick for the opponents anyway and removing it costs you one or two trumps and loses the lead. If they do ruff one of your winners later, it is with a trump that you were bound to lose. Your remaining trumps will then be high. In one situation it is important to remove the last trump even though theirs is higher than yours. If dummy has a long, strong suit but no other entries you cannot afford to leave a trump out before you run this suit Otherwise they may be able to ruff and prevent your using all of dummy s winners. 5. Ruff your losers in the shorter trump hand Normally you do not benefit by ruffing cards in your own hand if you have more trumps than dummy. Plan to ruff losers in the shorter trump hand. If you find yourself ruffing in the longer trump hand, make sure you have a sound reason. The fallacy of ruffing with the longer trumps can be seen in a case like this. If hearts are trumps, how many winners does West have? WEST EAST By simply leading out the trumps, H A K Q J 10 9 H 8 7 6 West has six winners. How many tricks will West have if West ruffs with the 9 of hearts? Still 6: one trick by ruffing and five top winners. What if West ruffs with the 9 and again with the 10? Still 6 winners in total, two ruffs and four top winners. Ruffing with the long trumps does not normally produce any extra winners. By contrast if West can arrange to ruff something in dummy, that is an extra trick: one ruff by the East hand plus the six that West always had gives seven tricks in total. If West can ruff twice in the East hand, there would be a total of eight tricks and if West could manage to ruff three times with the East trumps West would score nine tricks, making each of the trump winners separately Ruffing in the long trump hand usually does not gain. Ruffing in the shorter trump hand does gain.
What of the Defence. Against suit contracts you need establish quick tricks as soon as possible. This means leading from combinations such as AK or KQ or KQJ of a nontrump suit. In all these cases lead the TOP card. Partner will know that you hold the next card down so is safe to return the suit when he gets in. The Opening Lead against a suit contract Which suit to lead? 1. Has partner bid? YES: You should lead his suit. Which card to lead? This is the same as when defending against No Trumps. a. With a singleton : Lead the singleton. b. With a doubleton: Lead the top card followed by the lower one. c. With three or more to an Honour: Lead a low card. d. With three low cards: Lead the middle card, then the top and then the lowest. MUD = Middle, Up, Down e. With four or more low cards: Lead the top card Examples: 1. With K 4 lead the K followed by the 4 if you keep the lead. 2. With K 4 2 lead the 2. 3. With 9 7 3 lead the 7. MUD = 7 first then 9 then 3 Thus, Low Card = Like the suit High Card = Hate the suit 2. Has partner bid? No: Look for a suit of your own to lead. a. Avoid any suit bid by your opponents unless you are very strong in their suit. b. Lead a suit headed by a strong holding such as AK or KQ or QJ10. Lead the top card in each case. c. Do Not lead away from an unsupported Ace. Aces are for capturing a King or a Queen! d. Avoid leading away from broken suits such as K J 8 3. Thus, do not lead the 3. e. With three or more cards to an honour (K or Q or J) lead a low card. Low = Like. Thus, with K 9 7 2 lead the 2. f. With three or more cards not headed by an honour lead the top card. High = Hate. Thus, with 9 7 5 2 lead the9. g. With general strength in the non-trump suits then lead a trump from 2 or 3 low trumps.