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IMPROVE YOUR DECLARER PLAY

by Barbara Seagram barbaraseagram@gmail.com www.barbaraseagram.com

In No Trumps, you count your winners. Sure tricks that will win without losing the lead. Let's look at the hand below: Dummy is north and has this hand KQJ A32 KQJ10 J109 You are south and have this hand. You are in 6NT. West leads Queen Hearts A109 K5 9876 AKQ2 Count your sure tricks that are carved in stone: 3 spade tricks, 2 heart tricks, 4 club tricks A,K, Q J and ZERO diamond tricks (IF YOU DO NOT HAVE AN ACE, YOU DO NOT HAVE A WINNER…we are counting sure tricks or fast tricks) Count winners in the combined hands, dummy and declarer's hands. That comes to 9 winners. Is that enough? No, you need 12 winners to make 6 NT. Now, before playing a single card, even to trick one, you stop and figure out where the extra tricks will come from. When you cannot work out WHERE they will come from, work out where they will NOT come from. You cannot get more than 3 Spade winners. You cannot get more than 2 Heart winners. You cannot get more than 4 Club winners. SO, your project suit must be the leftover suit. Diamonds. You now make a note of the fact that diamonds is the project suit and you vow to attack that suit immediately. You play Diamonds until the ace is gone and bingo, you have the 3 more winners you need to make 6NT. You now “take your tricks and run”. BUT if you do NOT make a plan....After they lead the heart and you win the first heart with the Ace…Supposing you now play another heart. You win the King Hearts. Maybe now you play spades...you have taken two Hearts, 3 spades and NOW you get around to playing a diamond. The bad guys (East West) win the ace Diamonds and now they play their high Jack Hearts, their high 10 Hearts, 9 hearts etc: You get the idea. Now you are down. OK....now you know how to play NT contracts. Count SURE winners that are carved in stone and then attack project suit immediately.

PLAY OF THE HAND IN SUIT CONTRACTS.

You cannot count winners in suit contract. You have to count LOSERS. On the hand below, you (South) are in 7 Hearts. Dummy (North) has A5432 987 2 AJ32 You (south) 6 AKQJ10 A43 KQ65 West has led Spade King Now here, in a suit contract, you must count losers in declarer's hand. Actually, you count losers in the hand which has the MOST trump which is usually the declarers’ hand. For this reason, it is often called “the long hand”. The dummy is usually called “the short hand”, as it has fewer trump. So, in counting losers in declarer’s hand, you may now look across to dummy to see how dummy can help you with HIGH cards... You (south, don't forget) have NO spade losers (because you have the spade Ace in dummy). Hearts are trumps and they are gorgeous. NO heart losers. You have NO club losers. You DO, HOWEVER, HAVE TWO DIAMOND LOSERS. Do the 3 and 4 diamonds look like they can take tricks all by themselves without performing magic on them? The answer is NO. THEY ARE LOSERS. You have TWO losers too many. What will you do about it? You will trump your two diamond losers in the dummy BEFORE pulling trump. IF you pull trump first, there will be NO trump in dummy with which to trump your diamonds from declarer's hand and you will go down. You should win Ace spades (west led King Spades) and now play Ace Diamonds and trump a diamond in dummy. Get back to declarer's hand with a trump and trump another diamond. Do you see that you have now GAINED two tricks? Now you can draw trump and not before!!!! Let's go back to the lead of King Spades. Suppose instead....you win ace spades and trump a spade in your hand. Have you gained a trick? OR do you still have two diamond losers?

Let's say you cross to dummy (with ace clubs) and lead another spade and trump it in your hand. Once again, you win the trick but you have not GAINED a trick. You still have 2 diamond losers. Humour me...pretend that you now get to dummy with Jack clubs (they do not trump it, as they happen to have to follow suit) and you lead another spade and trump it in your hand. Same story. You win the trick but you do not gain a trick. KNOW THIS RULE You never gain a trick when you trump junk from dummy in declarer's hand. NEVER. You only gain a trick when you trump losers from declarer's hand with dummy's trump. On this last effort (the one you played badly and trumped spades in your hand), one opponent happens to have 4 trumps. Now you only have 2 trump left in your hand and now you cannot pull all the trump as the bad guys have more trumps than you do. Take two full minutes at the start of each hand before playing to trick one, as declarer. Defenders, instead of rolling your eyes and getting impatient while declarer makes her plan, stop and think how may points your partner can have on the hand, considering that there are 40 HCP in the deck. This will help you with your defence.

here are five main ways of playing a hand of bridge when you are declarer in a trump suit contract.

1. Ruffing in the dummy 2. Extra winners in the dummy. Discard losers from declarer’s hand on those winners. 3. Extra winners in declarer’s hand. Make a useful discard from the dummy. This will now mean that you will be able to trump something in dummy. (Having “extra” winners means you have a lopsided good suit somewhere that is not trump. The lopsided or top- heavy nature of the suit means that you can make discards.) 4. Finesses 5. Long suit establishment All you have to do is play detective and determine which method should apply on the hand in question. You must take the time to MAKE a plan or you won’t MAKE your contract. If you FAIL TO PLAN, YOU PLAN TO FAIL!! Have a look at the two hands below. These two situations come up all the time.

T

NORTH (DUMMY) ♠ 32 ♥ A76543 ♦ 3 ♣ 7653 SOUTH (DECLARER)

♠ AKQJ109 ♥ 8 ♦ A52 ♣ 984

NORTH (DUMMY) ♠ KQ2 ♥ 5432 ♦ 432 ♣ AQ8 SOUTH (DECLARER)

♠ J76 ♥ KQJ109 ♦ A75 ♣ K6

South is declarer in 4 ♠. (Don’t worry about how he got to 4♠.) South has 3 ♣ losers + 2 ♦ losers. The opponents take the first 3 ♣ tricks and West leads a 4th. ♣. S trumps in declarer’s hand. At mother’s knee, we learned to pull trump first. On this hand, declarer must recognize that he/she needs to first trump two ♦‘s in dummy. Once we have trumped the ♦ 2 in dummy, how do we return to our hand to do it again. We must play ♥ Ace & trump a ♥ in S hand. NOTE: We do not GAIN a trick this way. That trump in the S hand was always going to win a trick. We did this merely for the purpose of getting back to our hand. (Ruffing in declarer’s hand never gains you a trick. Ruffing in dummy ALWAYS gains a trick.) Once back in your hand, ruff another ♦. NOW you can simply say: “The rest are mine!” as you have only trumps left.

South is in 4♥. West leads ♦ King. Declarer has 2 ♦ losers, one ♠ loser and

1 ♥ loser. There are two kinds of losers: Quick losers and slow losers. Quick losers are the most treacherous kind of losers. We have quick losers in ♦‘s on this hand because wretched West has led a ♦. That means that if we allow the opponents to win a trick, they will be able to take 2 tricks QUICKLY in ♦. They will also win the ♠Ace and ♥ Ace. You will be down one. Therefore, when you have QUICK losers and no ace of trump, do not pull trump yet. Look for an opportunity to make a discard first. You have a lopsided ♣ suit. Play this immediately, (♣ K first: high honour from the short side first !). On the third round of ♣’s discard a ♦ from declarer’s hand. Not a ♠, it must be the pesky quick ♦ loser. NOW pull trump!

NORTH (DUMMY)

♠ KQ32 ♥ 5432 ♦ 432 ♣ K6 SOUTH (DECLARER) ♠ J76 ♥ KQJ109 ♦ A75 ♣ AQ8

South is in 4♥. West leads ♦ King. Declarer has 2 ♦ losers, one ♠ loser and 1 ♥ loser. There are two kinds of losers: Quick losers and slow losers. Quick losers are the most treacherous kind of losers. We have quick losers in ♦‘s on this hand because wretched West has led a ♦. That means that if we allow the opponents to win a trick, they will be able to take 2 tricks QUICKLY in ♦. They will also win the ♠Ace and ♥ Ace. You will be down one. Therefore, when you have QUICK losers and no ace of trump, do not pull trump yet. Look for an opportunity to make a discard first. You have a lopsided ♣ suit. Play this immediately, (♣ K first: high honour from the short side first !). On the third round of ♣’s discard a ♦ from dummy’s hand. Not a ♠, it must be the pesky quick ♦ loser. NOW pull trump! Much like hand on last page but the loser gets discarded from a different hand.

Sometimes you may fail to pull trump because your trumps are of poor quality. That should not make you nervous. If you have lots of good tricks (high cards) and lousy trumps, you simply have to draw those trumps, otherwise the opponents will ruff your good tricks in non-trump suits.

See the following example of this concept: North S J10 H J10973 D 53 C 10872 West East S 5432 S 9876 H AK8 H Q62 D AQ4 D KJ2 C Q54 C AKJ South S AKQ H 54 E W D J10986 1C 1S C 963 2S 4S Less experienced players are petrified when they are dealt these cards. West finds himself in 4 S which is a better contract than 3NT as you will score 420 (or 620 vulnerable) while in 3NT only 400 or 600. But armed with such lousy quality trump, they hesitate to pull trump. North should lead the top of sequence: Heart Jack, not Ace, King Queen of trump. Declarer must pull trump immediately. If he does not, hen SOUTH will score a trick with one of his Spade J or 10 as he ruffs a Heart. When declarer wins the second Heart return, he must pull trump again. ANOTHER SCENARIO: Sometimes you may pull too many trumps or draw trumps when you cannot afford to do so. If, for example, you have to ruff some losers in the dummy, then you will have to keep some trumps in dummy with which to trump declarer’s losers. Also, sometimes you need to keep some trump in dummy as entries to the dummy.

The following five hands are by Fred Karpin. Analysis by Barbara Seagram Dlr: S J 10 7 8 5 K 9 3 A 9 7 5 2 K Q 9 8 6 5 3 A 4 A Q J 7

Dlr: S K Q J 8 4 3 9 5 4 2 Q 8 7

9 6 4 3 A 10 8 2 Q J 10 9 7 5 2 J 7 3 Q 10 8 6 9 4 2 5

7 5 A K 6 A K A K J 10 6 3

N

W E

S

South is in 6S. West leads Heart King. South now has the most evil, the most vile of all losers: He has a QUICK loser in Hearts as well as a Spade loser. When you have quick loser(s) and no Ace of trump, you cannot pull trump yet, you must first discard your loser. Win Heart Ace and lead a small Diamond to dummy’s Diamond King. Pitch your Heart on the Club Ace and now draw trump.

N

W E

S

S N 2C 2D 3C 4C 4NT 5C or 5D depending on what Blackwood You are using 6C South has 1 Spade loser And 1 Heart loser West leads Heart Queen Declarer must win Heart Ace and lead two rounds of Clubs (Ace and King) keeping the Club Queen in dummy as an entry. Then he must play a small Spade to dummy’s King. East ducks it. Play the Spade Queen and East wins this and leads back a Heart. Note that if declarer had played all the trump, he would have had no entry to dummy’s Spade Jack, IF East ducks the Spade Ace. When developing extra winners in one hand, be sure that you leave yourself an entry to those winner(s).

Dlr: S 8 3 A K 9 7 5 J 9 8 9 7 2

K 9 5 2 7 6 4 J 6 4 2 Q 10 8 3 7 5 4 Q J 10 5 8 6 4 3

A Q J 10 A K Q 10 6 3 2 A K West North East South

2C P 2H Pass 3D P 4D Pass 7D

Dlr: S 8 7 5 4 2 A K 3 9 2 Q 10 5

A K J Q J 10 9 7 6 4 2 6 Q J 10 8 4 8 7 4 3 2 K J 9 6

Q 10 9 6 3 8 5 A K 7 5 3 A

West North East South 1S

Pass 4S All pass

N

W E

S

West leads Club Queen. Declarer counts his losers. One potential Spade loser. He is in 7D and does not want his contract to depend on a finesse. Is there anything lurking in dummy that may be of value (as well as the Heart Ace and King). South wins trick one in his hand with Club Ace and leads a small D to his D 8 in dummy. He plays Heart Ace and King and discards two Spades from his hand. He now ruffs a Heart, being careful to ruff with the D 10 (anything but D 2, 3 or 6 as he needs these). Back to dummy with small D to dummy’s D 9 and ruffs another Heart with a high D. The Heart 9 in dummy is now high. Using his last small D, declarer plays that over to the Diamond J and plays the final 5th Heart. Everyone has followed suit by now in Heats and he discards his Spade Q on dummy’s 13th. Heart. Long Suit Establishment. VERY valuable. If the opponents had not followed suit on Hearts all the way, then declarer would have still had the Spade finesse to fall back on.

N

W E

S

Declarer has 2 or 3 Spade losers and 3 Diamond losers. If she loses 3 Spades, she cannot afford to also lose any Diamonds at all. Declarer must ruff 3 Diamonds in dummy. If she draws any trump at all, the opponents will now pull her trump and she will be unable to trump THREE diamonds in dummy. Declarer gets back to her hand, ruffing a Club and ruffs Diamonds over and over in dummy. East fortunately cannot overruff.

Dlr: S K 4 2 A 6 5 9 6 4 3 J 9 2

8 7 5 9 3 Q 4 J 10 9 2 J 8 5 2 Q 10 7 K Q 10 6 A 8 4 3

A Q J 10 6 K 8 7 3 A K 7 5 West North East South

1S Pass 2S Pass 4S

:

N

W E

S

West leads Club K. South takes stock. He has 0 Spade losers 2 Heart losers 0 Diamond losers 2 Club losers One too many. South could always hope for Hearts to divide 3-3 and that his fourth Heart would now be good but odds are against this. South should ruff the third club lead and play Heart Ace and Heart King and now give away a Heart to charity. The opponents win the trick and now whatever they lead back, you win, next ruffing a Heart in dummy with Spade King. Now he can say: “The rest are mine!”

North This hand by Eddie Kantar S. A8 H. AQ72 D. AJ985 C. K4 West East S. Q10762 S. 943 H. 953 H. KJ108 D. Q73 D. K104 C. A8 C. 752 South S. KJ5 H. 84 D. 62 C. QJ10963 North East South West 1D Pass 1NT Pass 2NT Pass 3NT All Pass Opening Lead: S6

Bidding Commentary: There are many ways to bid this hand. For example, some might open 1NT with the North hand but it is not recommended with this distribution and a hand strong enough to reverse. Another possibility is to rebid 2H over 1NT to show reversing strength. If North chooses 2H, South, facing a 17-18 point hand, will probably rebid 3NT. The 2NT rebid also shows 17-18 HCP. All roads lead to Rome. Play Commentary: Clearly South must bring in the clubs. Whenever declarer is planning to establish a long suit in the weaker hand, entries to the weak hand must be a primary concern. After driving out the CA (presuming the opponents are not friendly enough to take the first club), South has to have a way to get back to those clubs. The return entry is the SK. Therefore, first trick must be taken with the ace preserving the SK. At trick two the CQ is played. West does best to win the 2nd club (the one that exhausts dummy) making it that much harder for declarer to get back to his hand to take club tricks. As it is, there is nothing the defenders can do to prevent South from gettting back to the clubs. Even if West shifts to the H9 (best) South has 9 tricks: 5 clubs, two spades and two red aces. Defensive Commentary: If South greedily plays low from dummy at trick one and wins the SJ he loses four club tricks in return! Assuming West wins the second club, South is in big trouble-no hand entry to the clubs. If South errs and plays a low spade at trick one, the defense must never play a third spade to allow South to ever see those winning clubs. As declarer before playing to the first trick, decide which suit you plan to establish up and size up the entry situation. Assuming sufficient entries, be careful not to block any 'entry suit'- like playing a low spade at trick one on this hand.

North This hand by Eddie Kantar S. 763 H. AKJ D. Q104 C. AQJ6 West East S. KJ92 S. 85 H. 54 H. 109862 D. 97652 D. AK8 C. 107 C. 942 South S. AQ104 H. Q73 D. J3 C. K853 North East South West 1NT Pass 2C Pass 2D Pass 3NT All Pass Opening lead: H 10 Bidding Commentary: Routine. Lead Commentary: If East has reason to believe that either opponent has a long running suit, a high diamond lead is recommended; otherwise a heart is better. Play Commentary: North counts sure tricks outside of the suit he plans to develop. There are two possible suits: spades and diamonds. Outside of spades, North has seven sure tricks: 4 clubs and 3 hearts. If North works with spades he needs two tricks from the suit including the ace; this is likely, but not certain. Outside of diamonds North has eight sure tricks: 4 clubs, 3 hearts and the ace of spades. North needs one trick from the suit. Given that declarer has the D QJ10 between the two hands, bringing in one extra trick in diamonds is a certainty. To ensure the contract, North plays on diamonds, not spades. Defensive commentary: If declarer attacks spades before diamonds, West can defeat the contract by winning whichever spade is finessed and returning a heart. Declarer is punished for attacking the wrong suit first.

Dlr:South K 4 Vul:None A K 3 6 5 4 3 2 A K 4

9 8 2 Q 10 8 4 J 9 5 2 K J 10 9 A Q 8 7 Q J 10 6 9 8 3

A Q J 10 7 6 5 3 7 6 7 5 2 West North East South

4 Pass 4 NT Pass 6 * *6D showed one key card and a void in Diamonds Pass 7 All Pass Opening Lead: Q

Dlr:West 6 5 Vul:None K J 9 Q 9 8 Q J 10 3 2

A J 10 7 4 3 K Q 9 8 7 6 5 8 4 3 6 4 2 A K 5 3 A K 5

2 A Q 10 2 J 10 7 9 8 7 6 4 West North East South 2 Pass 2 NT Pass

3 Pass 4 All Pass Opening Lead: Q

N

W E

S

N

W E

S

N bid aggressively to a grand slam. S counts his losers and finds only one too many. He has a C loser. He eyes the long D suit in dummy and thinks…” What if Diamonds divide 4-4 just this once? I could ruff D in declarer’s hand over and over again and finally the fifth Diamond in dummy would be high. Then I could throw away my losing C on the 13th D in dummy. The trick is to NOT pull trump just yet…ruff a D at trick 2 and then get to dummy’s S K, using this as a valuable entry. After all, you need 4 entries to dummy to set up the D suit and then a 5th entry in order to “enjoy” the 5th Diamond.

Oh happy day, we have an extra winner in dummy (C King) but think before you act. When you have drawn trump and ended in dummy, don't discard a H on extra winner, discard a D. This way, having pulled trump, now you can play D AK and ruff a D. IF D behave and divide 3-3 (rare), then on the 4th D in dummy (13th) you can discard a H, making 5. Overtricks are everything! The rest of the room will be in 4S making 4 for an average result but you will have a top board.

Dlr:North 7 5 3 2 Vul:None A Q 4 A K Q A K Q

9 K Q J 10 6 J 10 9 7 6 3 K 8 8 7 10 6 3 2 10 8 6 5 9 3

A 8 4 5 2 J 9 5 4 J 7 4 2 West North East South 2 Pass 2 Pass 2 NT Pass 3 NT All Pass Opening Lead: K

Dlr:West 6 5 2 Vul:None 6 3 A 9 8 Q J 9 8 6

Q J 9 4 A K 10 8 A J 10 8 5 K Q 2 6 2 J 4 3 A 4 7 5 2

7 3 9 7 4 K Q 10 7 5 K 10 3 West North East South 1 Pass 1 Pass 2 Pass 4 Pass 4 All Pass Opening Lead: K

N

W E

S

N

W E

S

Rats! The Opponents have taken your only entry away from dummy. You have 8 easy tricks and two more in dummy but after the S Ace has gone from dummy, you have no entries to the C J and the D J. You should hold up on S Ace till 3rd round. Now cash C AKQ and D AKQ and now lead a S. E will have to lead either a H into your A Q or a C or a D giving you an entry to dummy. E is said to be end played. A mean thing to do to your opponent!!

K D led. Then D Q, then shift to a C. This hand illustrates how much better a hand plays with a 4-4 fit as trump vs 5-3, when you have a choice of one or the other. Always choose the 4-4 fit. You can draw trump and then play the 5-3 fit and make discards on the extra winners. This hand makes 5 if Spades (4-4) are trump but only 4 if Hearts are trump. Overtricks are everything!

Dlr:West 6 3 Vul:None Q J 10 10 9 8 3 A K 9 7

A K J 8 7 4 Q 10 9 2 A 5 3 9 7 6 A 6 2 K 5 4 5 Q J 3

5 K 8 4 2 Q J 7 10 8 6 4 2 West North East South 1 Pass 2 Pass

4 All Pass -

Opening Lead: A

Last 5 hands by Julian Laderman. Analysis by Barbara Seagram

N

W E

S

N should lead the C Ace. When dummy hits with C QJx, N should abandon the suit, seeing the C 2 played by partner. N leads H Q next. W has 4 losers. He has to make one of those two high Clubs in dummy take a trick. Declarer draws trump in 2 rounds , ending in dummy and leads the C Q. If S covers, declarer trumps it. If he does not cover (more likely scenario) then W should discard a D or a H. N will win the Club but the C Jack in dummy is now high and we can get to dummy with a D or a trump. This is known as a ruffing finesse. We cannot afford to NOT take a trick with one of the C QJ…otherwise we got to game and did not use THREE of the points needed for game.