INTRODUCTION TO SOUND DECLARER PLAYLESSON ONE Does your mind go blank the moment partner puts down dummy? Do you find yourself wondering where you should begin? Don't worry, help is at hand. This course covers all of the basic techniques you need to develop tricks and establish suits. We'll even do a little counting and take some finesses. We'll discuss how to plan the play and how to avoid finding yourself in the wrong hand at an inconvenient moment. By the end of this course you'll be confident enough to want to be declarer all of the time.
As declarer we emphasize the need for a plan. Given that more tricks are lost because declarer does not STOP and PLAN prior to playing to trick one, this is where we will start. We recommend an acronym: ARCH.
Now let's start by looking at one facet of ARCH, counting potential winners. To do so, we start with building and developing tricks. For further work on enhancing your declarer play, any and all of our BRIDGE FORUM teachers are available to work with you whether through individual and/or partnership lessons; supervised play groups, (typically limited to 4-6 players) or in a larger course setting. You can also make financial arrangements with your BRIDGE FORUM teacher to play together in online tournaments. Regardless, you will receive lesson notes sent out prior to each session, on the spot feedback and, after each session, detailed analysis of the hands played. BUILDING AND DEVELOPING TRICKS Throughout these courses, and in just about any bridge book you read, you will come across two types of diagram - whole hands and single suits. In each case you may be shown just the dummy (always in the North position at the top of the diagram) and declarer's hand. Alternatively, the defenders' hands may also be depicted, and if so they will be in the East and West positions. If complete deals are presented each hand will be shown in four rows (spades at the top and then hearts, diamonds and finally clubs). Sometimes you will just be shown a single suit, as here. How many tricks do you have in this suit?
Correct-one. Now what about this suit?
If you answered none you are correct. If you answered three, you are also right. To begin with, you actually have no tricks in this suit - you cannot cash a winner if the opponents do not want you to, since they can use their ace to beat whichever card you play. However, you can build tricks on power in this suit. Once you have driven out the opponents' ace, you will have established three winners. Note that your king, queen, jack and ten are all equals. Whichever of them you play first, will either force out the ace or score a trick. Remember that even the ace can only score a single trick. Compare this with the first suit, in which you had one trick, but you could never build any more. You will rarely play a hand on which you start out with enough cashing tricks to fulfill your contract. What this means is that on most hands you will have to build, or develop tricks. In this first lesson we examine the materials you need to develop tricks. Think of those materials as building blocks, if you like. On the hand above, it didn't really matter how many low cards you had in your hand - dummy's K-Q-J-10 could be developed into winners on their own. However, suits seldom look quite like that. It is important for you to understand that the suit below is, in effect, exactly the same as the second suit layout above:
If this looks quite different to you, ask yourself how you developed three tricks on the layout in which dummy had K-Q-J-10. You used one of your equal honors to drive out the ace, and then the other three were all winners. You can do exactly the same on this layout too. You must learn to think of your hand and the dummy in combination. Let's change tacks slightly. Although it may seem strange since this is a course about declarer play, let's think about a bidding problem. Bearing in mind what you have seen so far, which of the following hands would you rather have? Which do you consider the better opening bid?
A dollar to a donut says the first thing you did was count up your points, right? What you found was that Hand A had 13 HCP (high-card points) and Hand B only 12. Ergo, Hand A is stronger¾yes? If you decided that you preferred Hand B, you have a true appreciation for the game beyond your novice status. To illustrate why Hand B is better despite having a point less, look at these two suits:
How many tricks do you expect to make from each of these suits? Holding suit A, you are certain to make one trick. You can use the king or the queen to drive out the ace, and you can then make a trick with the other high honor. However, you used up five HCP to generate a single trick. Compare that with suit B. With the addition of just one additional HCP plus the intermediate cards (tens and nines) that the HCP count does not take into consideration, and you can now guarantee making three tricks in the suit. To emphasize the value of these supporting (or intermediate) cards, look at these two suit layouts:
On the first layout, you will be able to develop a trick in the suit only if one opponent has both ace and king. In the second, the presence of the ten makes he location of the missing honors irrelevant. So far, we have concentrated on developing tricks using honor cards as your building blocks. Sometimes you can build your tricks thorough sheer weight of numbers. Consider this suit:
If you are playing in notrump, or with this suit as trumps, you can develop tricks just by leading the suit at every opportunity until the opposition's high cards have been played. On a really good day, as here, each opponent will hold two of the four missing cards in the suit. In that case, you will only have to lead the suit twice to develop four tricks despite having between your hand and dummy a combined total of zero HCP in the suit. This is how you build tricks on length. Most of the time, you will develop tricks based in a COMBINATION OF POWER AND LENGTH:
This time you have both length and strength in the suit. You begin with just two sure tricks, but see what happens when you play off your ace and king. More than half of the time, both opponents will have to follow suit. At that point, a total of eight cards from this suit will have been played. You will have four of the remaining five cards. Although the defenders' sole remaining card beats any of the four cards you have left, you can still build another trick in the suit. Play a third round, forcing the defenders to take their winner, and later, when you regain the lead, you will be able to cash your third winner in the suit. Thus, you made two tricks on power plus one length trick for a total of three. In Lesson 2, we will continue looking at how you develop tricks, but we shall introduce an additional factor into the equation¾the positional value of honors. HAPPY BRIDGINGJ
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