Pattern Recognition 2: Set Up Side Suits

This article will look at setting up side suits SUSS. In my opinion this is the biggest area where players fail, at all levels. I suggest reading these articles slowly.

Lets begin by looking at the key features of SUSS hands.

1. Dummy has a long side suit, typically 5 cards or longer. 

2. Dummy is reasonably strong, typically 10 or more points. Add 3 extra points when dummy has an extra trump (most typically 5-4 fits). 

Lets look at some examples. 

1. This is the hand we left on in the previous article

Playing in 4♠, once again you get the K♥ lead. Its a good idea to stop here and look at the hand properly, think how you would play it.

Dummy has 10 high card points, and a 4th trump (nice 5-4 trump fit, rather than 5-3). Add an extra 3 points on to that, giving dummy 13 points. That's more than the required 10 points. 

So, at this stage, you should look at the hand and recognise that it is a SUSS hand, not RSID (ruff stuff in dummy). Given that, how should we proceed? The correct approach is to play diamonds immediately and completely, so play the ♦ A, then play the  ♦ K, and finally ruff a diamond. 

What have you noticed so far? We are trying to set up diamonds as a priority. We have not drawn trumps, we have not ruffed any hearts. There will be some hands where we partially combine these ideas, sometimes we draw trumps first, sometimes we draw 1 trump etc. But for now, I would like to emphasise and establish the idea in your mind, of fully setting up the side suit as a #1 priority, before doing anything else. 

On this hand lots of things could happen. The diamonds could break 3-3, great, you've jut set up two new diamond winners. The diamonds could break 4-2, still fine, you're in the process of setting up one new diamond winner, and still have work to do. Remember we need to set the suit up completely. You should cross to dummy now, probably with a trump (do you see at least one reason we didn't draw trumps? The Ace of trumps is a very useful card we can use as an entry) and play another diamond, thereby creating the bounty - the set up diamond trick. 

Once the suit is set up, we can draw trumps, and often there will be enough trumps left to ruff some things as well. 

2. Playing 4♠, we get the  ♠5 lead. Stop to look at the hand and think how you would play it.

We win the  ♠A and then what? Are you tempted to ruff diamonds. You should reject that idea, you have 10 points in  dummy and a 6 card suit! 6 card suits are often very powerful assets. Lets use it to its best potential. At trick 2, fire off a heart towards the King.

Lets say they pop up with the  ♥A on your left, and play another trump, both opponents following. What do you do next? Keep focusing on the goal, set up side suits completely. Cross to dummy with a club, cash the  ♥K, and then ruff a heart. If the opponents both follow to the third round, then the distribution of the suit is 6331, in which case you have 3 fresh new heart winners. A huge reward. You will end up making lots of tricks if this is the case. 

What about if the suit breaks 4-2? Go back to dummy with a club (typically avoid ruffing stuff in dummy at this stage rather use the club entry), and ruff 1 more heart, thereby completely setting the suit up. You typically need total focus and determination when it comes to setting up suits, you can't only partially set them up. 

As a side point, are you familiar with counting suits like I am in this article, the hearts breaking 6331, or 6421? This will also be a topic for future articles, a very important topic. 

3. Playing in 4♥, the 2♣  is led. How would you play it?

What type of hand is this? Dummy has 10 high card points, and add 3 points for having the extra trump (its not a typical 5-3 fit, its a 5-4 fit, dummy has extra trumps which means extra power!). Dummy also has a 5 card suit, therefore it has the features for a SUSS hand. 

Should you be worried that you have a rather anemic looking spade suit opposite a singleton? No, that is completely fine. 5 cards opposite a singleton can still very typically be set up into extra winners. If the suit breaks 4-3 in the opponents hands, after you play 4 rounds of it, your 5th one will come to life. 

So what do we do with the first trick, where do we win it? Since you want to fire off a spade towards your  ♠K as soon as possible, you want to win it in hand with the  ♣K, and play your ♠6 towards the King. Lets say that loses and they return another club. What are you going to do? Hopefully you're getting the hang of it, ruff a spade. Go back to dummy again, say with the  ♥K, and ruff another spade. At this point you have played three rounds of spades, you will be able to see that quickly at the table because you will notice dummy has 2 spades left. At this point, ruff a diamond to dummy, ruff a spade. Now they are set up and you can draw 2 rounds of trumps, ruff a diamond, and cash your well deserved spade trick.

Playing this hand precisely might also require drawing one more round of trumps at some stage, possibly at an early stage, with your trump A. As a general rule however, when in doubt set up your side suits before drawing trumps. Only once you have fully set them up should you turn your mind to drawing trumps. Although as you saw here, you partially drew trumps on the way, because you used dummy's king of trumps as an entry to help set up the hearts. In other words, your king of trumps gave you an extra benefit, it worked hard for you!

The main take away from this article should be, when it is a SUSS hand, make sure to completely set up those long suits, if you do that, you will start noticing your scores improve dramatically.

Where to next

• -> Next: Pattern Recognition 3: Find and Build Trick Sources
• -> Related: Count Winners in No-Trump: Build a Trick Plan
• -> Back to Declarer Articles Hub