Count Winners in Trumps: Avoid Missed Tricks

This is an easy enough concept, but it is for ambituous players. It takes effort to learn, but trust me it is worth it. There aren't many people out there that know how to properly understand a trump suit. Lets start with an example.

Example 1. 

Playing in  2♠ you get the ♥Q lead. 

If I've ever asked anyone to count tricks with such hands, they are very competent at counting the Aces and Kings. Their trick count will go something like this

"No club tricks, 2 diamond tricks, 2 hearts. And spades.... I'm not sure how many I'll make". 

Lets focus squarely on suit combinations, and then later come back to that hand.

Suit combo 1. 

How many tricks is it? How should you look at it? 

One possible and quite logical way to look at it is like this. "If I duck a trump, then when I regain the lead I'll cash the Ace. If both follow I'll lose the trick that I ducked, and the final outstanding trump that I'm not going to draw." Forget the outstanding trump for a brief moment, if it didn't exist, you would have 5 tricks in the suit. Why? You can't make all 5 trumps in hand, because you've ducked one. You only make 4. But then you have one left in dummy, which you will ruff with, bringing your total to 5. NOW, lets bring the outstanding trump into the equation. At some point the opponents will over ruff you, reducing your trick count to a total of 4, instead of 5. 

Just a brief side note. If the suit breaks 3-2, you should be able to see why there is only 1 trump left, after ducking one and then cashing the Ace (if both players follow). You've removed two trumps from each side, so the 3-2 break has become 1-0. An alternate way to think of it is - If there are 5 trumps outstanding (you have an 8 card fit), after ducking one round, and then cashing the Ace the next round, you have played two rounds. If both follow that is four trumps, reducing the outstanding trump count from an initial 5 to a current 1.

Therefore, that suit combination can be seen as 4 tricks IF you duck one, cash the Ace next, and are able to ruff one. Of course, if there is no prospect of ruffing anything, there's no point in counting the ruff. (In some unusual cases you might get away with making more tricks if the opponents can't over ruff, but we'll revisit that later, its an exceptional circumstance).

Suit combo 2. How many tricks do you see when you look at this trump suit?

My thinking goes along these lines - If I cash the Ace and King, and both opponents follow. I'll make 3 trumps in hand, and have 2 trumps left in dummy to ruff with, totalling 5. Why three trumps in hand and not all four? Don't forget about the outstanding trump that you don't plan on drawing, that will over ruff you at some stage*. 

Its worth making one more comment about suit combo 2. That trick count relied on you drawing two rounds, and then making the remainder of the trumps on a cross ruff, with the opponents overrufing once. However, if the opponents are allowed to get in and draw a round of trumps for you, it will lead to a different result. Precisely, it will result in 3 trumps in hand still (same as before), but only 1 ruff in dummy. Total of 4 tricks. Lets look at a quick example on this

Play in 4♠, opponents lead the ♦Q, how do you play it, and more importantly, how do you plan it and count tricks?

I look at it like this, if I cash the AK of trumps and they both follow, I'll make 5 trump tricks by way of 4 trumps in hand, and 2 ruffs in dummy, however the outstanding trump will reduce that number by one trick. I'll also make 1 heart (the ace), 2 diamonds (Ace and King), 2 clubs (Ace and King). Total is 10. Only issue is that when I lose the heart lead, I can't let the opponents draw a trump, so I must first lose the heart, and thereby setting up the cross ruff, before drawing trumps. 

Translation = win the lead, duck a heart, win the return and cash two top trumps, then claim 10 tricks. Double check it if you like - you will lose 1 trump, 1 heart and 1 club.

Lets finish with suit combo 3, which is a fairly simple one, or is it?

Assume that trump suit breaks 3-2. How many tricks do you have? If you bang down the Ace, King and Queen, you will draw them all. You'll have 4 tricks in hand, and 1 trump left in dummy for a ruff. Totalling 5 tricks. What if you NEED 6 tricks from the suit, is that possible? The answer is yes, you just have to put the suit into motion differently. This time you need to take two ruffs in dummy, before drawing trumps. Totalling 4 tricks in hand, 2 ruffs in dummy, which gives you 6 tricks.

Returning back to example 1.

Playing in  2♠ you get the ♥Q lead. 

If you win the heart, duck a trump. Then later cash the Ace of trumps. You could make 8 tricks if the trumps break 3-2. By way of 3 trumps in hand (you ducked one, and the outstanding trump will reduce your winner count one more, so your AJ842 in hand becomes 3 tricks), 1 ruff in dummy. That totals 4 trump tricks. You then also have 2 heart tricks and 2 diamond tricks (aces and kings), for a total of 8 tricks. Therefore, you can confidently say you have a winning play IF the trumps break 3-2. That is a very good start to the analysis, and sometimes its the best you can do. Sometimes you can't make a contract if the trumps break badly. Either way, its very very good to be able to start off with a plan that you know will work if trumps break 3-2 (majority of the time). And then you can see if you can refine your plan, and if not, you're still doing well. 

As I keep emphasising, the topic of counting winners and losers is an ongoing task that requires work and practice. Many more articles and future practice exercises will be devoted to this topic. 

Where to next

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• -> Related: Draw Trumps or Delay: Make the Right Plan
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