SAYC Yellow Jacket

Bridge Notes

Declarer Play

Winning Tricks

  1. Some tricks are won with high cards.

    • Facts:  Power Tricks
      • An Ace always wins a trick in a NoTrump contract and usually wins in a Trump Suit contract.
      • Winning a trick with a card 1 higher than the opponent's highest played card is usually the best use of your cards.
    • Conclusion:
      • Save cards that are sure winners ("Power Trick Cards") for other purposes.
      • Play high cards at the most optimum time:
        1. as an entry to the other partnership hand
        2. to take the highest opponent card possible
        3. to prevent untimely transportation of lead by the opponents (See Position Tricks)
    • Exception:  sometimes you must cash sure winners quickly because:
      1. the suit will never be led later in the play;
      2. an opponent will win an undeserved trick with a lower card;
      3. an opponent will discard all cards in that suit and ruff your high cards.
    • Example:  N/S win 2 Tricks
  2. Some tricks are won because of the location of cards.

    • Facts:  Position or Finess Tricks
      • A King is more likely to win a trick if the Ace is in the opponent's hand who is sitting before (1 seat counter-clockwise) the player who holds the King.
      • If the King is held by the opponent who sits in the seat before your hand that holds the Ace and Queen, you can finess to win 2 tricks.
    • Conclusions:  finess technique
      • Lead low from a hand that has a small card so that the hand with a high card can play after one of the opponents's has played a card.
      • If the opponent that is to the right of the hand with a high card is on lead and they lead a low card, you should consider NOT playing the high card. Wait (if feasible) until the right-hand-opponent plays a card that is a "little" smaller than your high card, then play your high card.
      • If the opponent that is to the left the hand with a high card is on lead, you can choose to play that high card after BOTH opponents have played a card. This senario allows you to get the optimum value from that high card.
    • Example: location of K
    • Example: finess
    • Example: timing of playing the A
    • More on the Finess
  3. Some cards need to be promoted to be able to win a tricks.

    • Facts:  Power Promotion
      • A King-Queen combination will always win 1 trick. Loose one of the two to the Ace. Then the other card MUST win a trick.
      • A longer sequence---King, Queen, Jack---will always win 2 tricks.
      • A long sequence will always win 1 trick less than the length of the sequence. Combined with Postion Trick technques, it may win 1 additional trick.
    • Conclusions:
      • Using "Power Promotion" you can lead any card in a sequence to promote the remaining cards in that sequence.
      • Loosing a trick early in the hand can lead to a winner later.
    • Example:  Loose a trick to promote a winner
  4. Long cards in a suit can be promoted to winners

    • Facts:  Long Card Promotion
      • If a card in a suit is led and the opponents have no more cards in that suit (and no trumps), your side will always win that trick.
    • Conclusions:
      • If you have a suit with more cards than either opponent has, you can keep leading that suit until all the opponents cards have been played. The remaining cards can be led as winners.
      • You may actually loose one or more tricks to the opponents, but your trick total will be increased by the long cards that you promote to winners.
    • Example:  Loose no tricks to promote a winner
    • Example:  Loose several tricks to promote a winner

Control

  1. High cards cannot win tricks if the suit is not led.
  2. When the opponents gain the lead, they will try to lead a suit that helps them win or setup tricks. If you have a high card in a suit led by the opponents, you can gain control and lead suits that win the most tricks for your partnership.
  3. Transportation is the technique of leading a card in a suit in one hand (e.g., Declarer) and playing a high card in the other hand (e.g., Dummy) which wins the trick. The lead has been "transported" to the other hand.

Conclusions

  • The most important skill in playing the hand is knowing how to promote cards to become winners.
  • Plan the play of the hand to first promote cards to become winners.

Stop and Plan

The primary guideline for Declarer to remember is to make a plan before playing the 1st card from dummy.

  • NoTrump Contract

    • Evaluate trick status
      • Count highly probable winners
      • Determine additional winners needed

    • Create Plan 1
      1. Play intermediate cards in long suit to setup winners
        • Loose tricks while you still have controls (sure winners) in all or most of the suits
      2. Play top cards in long suit to setup winners
        • Use suits with top card winners as transportation to setup winners in other suits.
        • After you setup winners, then play the high card winners and the low card winners that you set up.
      3. Always include transportation in your plan. You may be able to setup 5 winners in a suit, but not have the transportation to lead that suit and collect those potential winning tricks.

    • Evaluate Plan 1
      • Determine if additional tricks needed.

    • Create Plan 2 - add to Plan1
      1. Take finesses in a suit that will create a winner even if the finess loses.
      2. Take finesses in suit that will only creates a winner if the finess wins.
      3. As you gain experience you will learn additional techniques to manufactor winners.
      4. If your transportation is a problem, you may need to try a different strategy.

    • Evaluate the safety of your plan.
      • What is the probability that a suit is distributed in the opponent's hands in a manner that your plan will work? If it is low, is there an alternate strategy?
      • Can loosing an early trick on purpose, improve the probability that a long suit can be setup to provide extra winning tricks?
      • Can the oppoenent's counter your plan causing it not to work? A simple delay in taking an A (a holdup play) until Declarer looses a key transportation card can result in a loss of tricks for declarer. [Example: discussed in Defender card play.]

    • Evaluate the plan to determine if you can afford to be greedy. Overtricks are the extra tricks that are taken in addition to those needed to make the contract. Overtricks score a small amount of points, but making the contract scores more. [In duplicate scoring, sometimes overtricks and be very important to make.]
      • In general, do not risk making an overtrick, if that might cause you to loose additional tricks that would result in the defeat of the contract.
      • If you play duplicate, you will need to learn the exceptions when you play against advanced and expert players.
  • Trump Suit Contract

    • Evaluate trick status.
      • Count probable loosers.
      • Determine additional winners needed.

    • Create Plan 1
      1. Lead trumps frist to make the oppoenents play their trumps before than can ruff (or trump) your otherwise winning tricks in other suits. This is referred to as pulling trumps. In Plan 1, assume a normal split of the trumps in the opponent's hands.
      2. Use same techniques at described in NoTrump play.
      3. When setting up a long suit, use long trumps to setup winners in other suits.
        • When one hand has played all the cards in a suit that needs to be setup in the other hand.
        • Ruff the loosers in that suit to setup long cards in that suit.
      4. Play top cards in long suit that have been setup
      5. Ruff loosers in suits even though they cannot be setup
      6. Again, include transportation in your plan. In a Trump Suit contract, you also can use ruffs to aid in your transportation needs.

    • Evaluate Plan 1
      • Determine if additional tricks needed

    • Create Plan 2 - add to Plan1
      1. Take finesses as described in NoTrump play.
      2. You should look for alternate strategies in cause trumps do not split normally.
      3. As you gain experience you will learn additional techniques to manufactor winners.

    • Evaluate the safety of your plan.
      • Use same techniques at described in NoTrump play.
      • In a Suit Contract, the fact that you usually have more trumps than the opponents means that your long trumps can be used to regain control in the opponnents long suits.
      • When you have only 0 or 1 long trump, you may need to not pull all the trumps. By letting the opponents ruff 1 (or even 2 tricks), your safety and transportation problems may be solved and you actually take more overall tricks.

    • Evaluate the plan to determine if you can afford to be greedey.
      • Use same techniques at described in NoTrump play.
      • The fact that you have long trumps will allow you to attempt to take extra tricks.

    • Additional technique:   cross-ruffing
      • There is an additional technique available in some cases. In stead of pulling trumps, you may use all your trump to ruff tricks---some in Dummy's hand and some in Declarer's hand.
      • With care, you save your high trumps to last when the opponents are out of the suits that you are ruffing. The opponents have to play their small trump at the same time you play your higher trump cards. You win the trick and the oppoenent have to underruff.