Take Every Chance: Create Extra Tricks Before Defence Settles

One of the hallmarks of expert bridge play is taking every last chance. In order to recognise some of the more "difficult" situations, players typically only need simple counting skills, and experience tackling such problems. Lets look at some examples.

1. This is a good warm up hand, playing in 3NT the opponents lead a spade, knocking out your only stopper.

The problem is that we cannot lose the lead, or else the opponents will cash enough spade winners to take the contract down at least one. Now that we are firmly settled into the problem, lets follow our normal routine of analysis.

Counting top tricks we can see 1 spade, 2 hearts, 3 diamonds, 2 clubs, totalling 8. We have lots of opportunities for a 9th, lets review them. 

a) The club suit can break 2-2, in which case we have an extra 3 tricks. 

b) The diamond suit can break 3-3, or the Jack can drop after two rounds, or even we can take the finesse (especially for example after cashing two top diamonds, West shows out, we can take the marked finesse). 

c) We can fall back on the heart finesse. 

So, the plan is straight forward, if a) and b) don't work, we fall back on the heart finesse. The main point is, we do not try the heart finesse until we have exhausted all our other options. 

Lets increase the difficulty slightly.

2. Playing again in 3NT, we get a heart lead. Please have a think how to play it before reading on.

Lets count tricks again, 2 spades, 2 hearts, 2 diamonds, 1 club - total of 7 tricks. 

Our constraint this time is that we have only two heart stoppers, and one gets knocked out immediately by the lead. In other words, we can lose the lead once only. 

Lets continue our analysis the normal way - 

a) Focus on clubs for a moment. Outside of clubs we have 6 tricks. If clubs break 2-2 we will get a total of 4 tricks in the suit, bringing our total to 9. However, if they don't break, the opponents will win the lead when we lose a club, knock out our heart stopper, and its game over. 

b) Focus on diamonds for a moment. Outside of diamonds we have 5 tricks. If diamonds break 3-2, we will have 4 tricks in the suit, bringing our total to 9. 

What order should we test the suits, and what is the difference?

If we play diamonds first, cashing the Ace and then  the King, we can see if the suit breaks before having to lose the lead. If it breaks, great, lose a diamond to the enemy, but set up two extra tricks. IF it doesn't break, abandon that suit and fall back on clubs, hoping they break. As mentioned before, trying clubs first is inferior because it is an all or nothing approach in one suit, it does not combine chances.

3. Once again in the popular contract of 3NT, we get another heart lead.

Once again they have knocked out one of our precious stoppers, we only have one left. (This is an ever recurring idea in No trump, races to set up suits).

Lets count top tricks as usual, 0 spades, 2 hearts, 1 diamond, 3 clubs. Total of 6.

a) if we play spades, we can set up two extra tricks, bringing our total to 8, not enough. 

b) if we play diamonds and they break, we will get 4 tricks in the suit, which gives us 0 + 2 + 4 + 3, total of 9. 

Is that the end of the analysis or is there something more? Look carefully if you haven't spotted it yet.

In fact the club suit provides a hidden possibility. If clubs break 3-3 we will have an extra trick in that suit, does that single trick make much of a difference? Absolutely, that would bring our trick count to 7 instead of the original 6. NOW, if we played spades, enjoying our guaranteed two extra tricks from the suit, we will bring our total to 9. In other words, if the clubs break we are making this contract for sure, by simply playing spades. If they don't break, we fall back on the diamonds. 

Do you see the big point? We can't try diamonds first. If we did try diamonds, it would involve losing the lead once. The opponents would take that moment to knock out our second and only remaining heart stopper. After which time, we don't have the luxury of playing spades, which would involve losing the lead again (as the hearts are now open for the opponents to cash). In summary, if clubs break we make the contract, if they don't, we hope diamonds break. That is self evidently better than just relying on diamonds breaking, as its giving declarer the extra 33% or so chance that the clubs break, thats fairly significant since it costs nothing to try!

Overall

Look for extra chances in the hand. Counting tricks is always needed in order to develop logical lines of play, make it a habit. 

Where to next

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• -> Related: Practice Hand 1: Plan Before You Play
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