Declarer Play Basics: Build a Plan at Trick One

By Paul Dalley · Updated

As with the other courses, this is meant for players of all levels. If you are new to bridge, learning high quality fundamentals is the ideal thing to do. If you have been playing bridge a long time, rethinking some incorrect ideas may be what you need to take your game to the next level. This course will look at the building block of good declarer play, pattern recognition.


Building proper pattern recognition. The brain is powerful when it comes to recognising patterns. When dummy comes down, a well trained mind will be able to quickly identify a good plan. Should I ruff clubs in dummy? Should I set up that long heart suit? What do I do about my diamond losers? 


I'm going to go through the main types of hands. The goal is for readers to be able to more confidently and quickly identify what is going on, rather than being lost or confused at trick 1. The truth is that most experienced players are going wrong in this area. They are drawing trumps when they should be ruffing, or vice versa they are ruffing when they should be drawing trumps, or they are ruffing when they should be setting up a suit. There are many ways to go wrong.. 


You're declarer in 4♠, lead is the  ♥ K. The type of questions I hope to answer are: What do you do, do you draw trumps? Do you ruff hearts? Do you play diamonds?

Thanks

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