Bridge – Try It, You’ll Like It

By far, the best book ever written on this subject is called, “The Play of the Hand at Bridge” by Louis Watson. The first edition was published in 1934 and is as useful today as it was then. Because bidding styles have changed dramatically over the years, some of his bidding examples are somewhat outdated, but having arrived at the proper contract, his play of the hand is still fundamentally the best way to go. I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in learning to play or improve their bridge.

In Chapter VII, Watson lays down 5 principles of success in playing bridge. His first principle is to make a plan. If you are the declarer, do not play a single card after the opening lead until you have studied the Dummy and formulated a plan to fulfill your contract. Many beginning students of the game will take Aces and Kings and then sit back and wonder what to do next. Better players will try to develop tricks which are not so obvious by forcing out the opponents Aces and Kings, so they can make their smaller cards good. Conceding tricks early in the hand will often lead to the development of tricks taken by smaller cards.

Lets look at an example: the contract is 3 No Trump. The opponents have been silent (they Passed at every opportunity) and you are the Declarer:

 

Dummy
♠ K 7 5 4
♥ Q 10 2
♦ Q 5
♣ K 6 4 3

♠ J 8 3
♥ 9 3
♦ A 9 6 4
♣ J 10 8 5
♠ Q 9 6
♥ A J 8 5 4
♦ 7 3
♣ Q 9 7
♠ A 10 2
♥ K 7 6
♦ K J 10 8 2
♣ A 2

So, the first question is … How many tricks do I need to fulfill my contract? Answer 9. Next question How many top tricks do I have? Answer 4. So, where will I get the rest? There are 4 potential tricks in the Diamond suit after we drive out the Ace and one in the Heart suit once we drive out the Ace. But we have to do this before the opponents get 5 tricks. So let’s make a plan.

Let’s assume the opponent leads the ♦4 which is 4th from his longest and strongest suit. You play the Q from Dummy and play another diamond to try to get rid of the Ace. Whether he takes the Ace or not doesn’t matter, because you will keep playing high Diamonds until he does.

After he takes the ♦A what will he do next … probably play the ♣J. You take your K and now you must get rid of the ♥A. You play small to the ♥Q and whether or not the opponent takes his A, you have your 9 tricks.

You can see how important it is to get rid of the Aces in the opponents hand before you start taking all your tricks in the other suits. If, after getting rid of the ♦A, you start taking your other tricks, the opponents will develop winners in the other suits and then when you try to cash the ♥K, they will take the A and the other tricks they have established. You will be left with only 8 tricks instead of the 9 you need to fulfill your contract.

Now, let’s assume that West leads his fourth club, the ♣7. An important question here is did West start with 5 clubs or 4 clubs? If West started with 5, we must be careful not to let him in twice. If he started with 4, it doesn’t much matter.

If West started with 5 clubs and both missing Aces we are doomed. However, in all likelihood, if he had 2 Aces and 5 clubs he probably would have entered the bidding at some point … but he didn’t. So we need to assume that, at worst, the Aces are divided. So the worst case scenario is that West has 5 clubs and one Ace. We need to get rid of the Ace that West holds so he cannot get in to play the rest of his clubs.

We can take the ♣A and play the diamonds. If West has the ♦A, he can take it and play another club. We can take the ♣K and play a Heart with some assurance that East has the A, but either he has no more clubs to return or does have one and West can only take 2 club tricks (a total of 4 clubs). In either case we can make our 9 tricks and fulfill our contract.

What if East has the ♦A and West has the ♥A? In that situation it is vital that we give up a club and not take our ♣A right away. Again, if East only has 2 clubs, then when we take the Ace, East is out of clubs and cannot get to West except with the Heart Ace which is fine with us because we still have control of the clubs.

I know this sounds very complicated, but you can see that the planning at the beginning is very important. You must plan the hand before you play a single card. If you just start playing your winners, you will not make your contract.

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