Duck to Preserve Communication: Set Up Your Long Suit

Ducking, in order to set up a long suit, is a well known idea. The goal of this article is to get the reader aware that ducking in order to set up long suits can be done at times when it might not look intuitive to most players.

Lets look at some basic examples to begin with, where ducking looks natural. The first example should be fairly intuitive. 

Suppose playing in 3NT, on the below hand declarer needs five spade tricks, but has no entries outside the spade suit to the North hand. (Imagine the north hand opened a weak two, has a good long spade suit, and nothing else).

If the suit breaks 3-2 you can comfortably get five tricks by ducking the first round. Ducking helps us keep connected, or if you prefer – it keeps communication open. 

Let's look at a less obvious example, 

Ducking one round here will keep the hands connected, and will ensure four tricks whenever the suit breaks 4-2 or 3-3. If the suit breaks 5-1 you won’t make any extra tricks whatever you do. 

Considering the possibility of ducking in such situations gives rise to new options. In the context of a full hand. 

Playing in 6♦, you get a club lead. Assume trumps break 4-1 for this exercise. This is a fairly difficult hand, and is for players that are ambitious about improving their declarer play.

Let me work through the planning stages with you

“My top tricks are 3 spades, 1 heart, 4 diamonds and 2 clubs, totalling 10 tricks. Ruffing two clubs would give me 2 extra tricks, but I don’t have the entries to get back to my hand twice to ruff the clubs, then a third time to draw trumps (try it yourself, note that you are using two of your trumps for ruffing so can’t use them to get back and forth, also you need to use the ♦K to draw trumps). 

“Forget the above plan and instead focus on my long spade suit. At some point I could duck a spade in order to set up a 4th trick in the suit, which would bring my total tricks to 11, and then I would only need to ruff 1 club”. 

If you follow that line through, you hopefully will be able to see that it works (although this is a very difficult bridge hand, so don’t be disheartened if you are struggling). 

So, win the club, cross to your hand with a trump and ruff a club, Cash the King of trumps and draw trumps, then just duck a spade, keeping connected to the hand, as it does not have any other entries outside of the suit. 

Contract made!.

Where to next

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• -> Related: Count Trumps Accurately: Control the Contract
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