Count the Unseen Hand: Read Distribution in Defence

Push yourself in defence, try count declarer’s tricks even when the hand is unknown. 

This is a very difficult, but highly instructive problem. Worth looking at to see how counting tricks can lead to concrete conclusions.

You, west, lead the ♥K. It holds, what next? 

Note: Declarer is a careful player, and would have cue bid if he had two small hearts to check all was well, instead of jumping to 4NT. In other words, you can safely assume declarer has a singleton heart.

We can count declarer’s trump tricks – if he draws three rounds (you can see that they are breaking 3-2), declarer will have 5 trump tricks by way of 4 in hand, and 1 ruff. This is a key starting point, if this is difficult see the article in declarer play on counting tricks. 

Keep going. 

1 diamond trick, the Ace. No heart tricks. How many club tricks? If declarer has 6 clubs including the King, giving him 4126 shape, that will be 6 club tricks, moving the total to 12 tricks (5 + 0 + 1 + 6 = 12). It is impossible on the bidding for declarer to be missing the King of clubs, and even if he is missing the Queen (unlikely), it will drop. 

What about if declarer has only five club cards? That will only give 11 tricks (5 + 0 + 1 +5 =11). In that case where can declarer possibly get more tricks from? You can see that declarer won't be able to make more tricks in the red suits, so declarer's plan might be to make an extra trump trick. 

Here is the full hand.

Watch what happens if you play a heart. Declarer ruffs, returns to dummy with a club, ruffs another heart. Cashes two top trumps, returns to dummy with a second club, draws trumps.

Total trick count on the above line is 6 trumps (4 in dummy, and 2 ruffs in hand), 0 hearts, 1 diamond, 5 clubs = 12. 

The way to stop this plan is to immediately play a club, killing one of the critical entries needed for this plan. In fact playing a trump does not achieve the same result as it creates an extra trump entry in dummy with the 9 of spades, try it for yourself. 

Overall this is a VERY difficult example and not one I would worry about if you do not get right. Most times at the table things will be easier than this. The point is that concrete counting of tricks can lead to very strong plays that might otherwise not occur to a player, or look counter intuitive. 

Where to next

• -> Next: Dummy Type 3: Ruffing Dummy and How to Counter It
• -> Related: Defence Basics: Build a Plan at Trick One
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