No-Trump Basics: Build Your Long Suit and Cash Winners (Beginner Declarer)

No-Trump Basics: Build Your Long Suit and Cash Winners

No-trump contracts can feel confusing at first. There are no trumps to rescue you, but then again the opponents do not have trumps to hurt you with either.

The good news: most no-trump hands can be played with one clear idea:

What “build your long suit” means

In no-trump, your long suit is often your best source of extra tricks.

Building a long suit means:

• forcing out defenders’ high cards in that suit,
• then cashing your promoted small cards later.

So you are often willing to lose one or two tricks now to win several tricks later.

Why this is the core no-trump plan

At this stage, many no-trump contracts are won or lost on one question:

Did declarer create enough tricks before defenders ran theirs?

If you just cash top cards without a plan, you often run out of winners. If you build your long suit early, your trick count usually improves fast.

Simple plan at trick one

When dummy comes down, ask:

Where, or in which suit, am I going to get my winners from? (Hint: not just your top winners like your Aces, but your suits that have potential to give you extra winners.)

The point in this article is to start recognising those sources of tricks. In future articles we will also talk about other ingredients, like entries. Entries are often the key to unlock the treasure.

Typical features of suits where extra winners come from

1. Our long suits - the most likely characteristic. Your tricks typically are in your long suits.
2. Our dense suits which are not yet tricks. For example KJ1087 opposite 954. Currently you have no certain tricks in there, but you have a lot of high cards that have not yet been put to work. Lets get them working.
3. Honor sequences are very typical trick sources, for example KQJ10 opposite 874.

Where to next

• -> Next: Establishing Side-Suit Winners: Honor Sequences Like KQJ10
• -> Related: Cash Trumps Without Blocking: Keep Your Winners Running
• -> Back to Beginner Declarer Articles Hub