D6 SUIT CONTRACT PLAY

1. PLANNING THE PLAY

Planning at trick one is the essence of success. It is rarely 'clever' to play immediately to trick one!

a) When dummy goes down, count your losers as best you can.

If you have too many losers to make the contract,

Can the losing cards be discarded on side suit winners after trumps are drawn?

Must the losing cards be discarded on side suit winners before trumps are drawn?

Can the losing cards be trumped in the 'short' trump hand, usually dummy's hand ?

Will 'finessing' help? e.g.ª 4 3 2 opposite ª A Q 6 may be only one loser

b) Having counted 'losers', then count your winners and formulate a plan of play.

Always ask yourself, 'is there any reason why I should not be drawing trumps straight away?' The simplest hands are those where you have a good suit of trumps and side suit winners. In this case you simply draw trumps and cash your side suit winners. There is an old adage that there are many people sleeping rough on the embankment because they lost money at bridge by not drawing trumps! There are exceptions to this rule however.

2. WHEN SHOULD TRUMPS NOT BE DRAWN AT TRICK 2?

a) When you need to use a side suit as entry to play trumps from the 'correct' hand, i.e. you may need to 'finesse' in trumps.

b) When your trump suit is not 'solid' and you need to discard losers on another suit straight away

c) When you need to trump losers in dummy. You may need to lose the lead first, a singleton in dummy for instance, in order to set up the position.

d) On hands where you do not have a good side suit and you make tricks by 'cross trumping' both in dummy and in hand. (Note that on this type of hand, you should play your side suit top winners first. Since you will be trumping suits in both hands, later in the hand defenders may be left with nothing but trumps and would trump in on your aces and kings if you had not cashed them first.)

e) Occasionally you may have to set up your side suits first while dummy's trumps protect you against the defence running their suits.

f)) Sometimes you find your trump suit is very weak in both length and in high cards, e.g. Q6532 opposite a singleton. If you don't have a good side suit to set up, it may be better to try to trump short suits in your own hand. This could be the only way of actually making tricks!

3. A METHOD OF COUNTING CARDS

Most experienced players observe how a suit 'breaks' rather than actually counting the cards.

An 8 card suit 'breaks' 5/0, 4/1, or 3/2 (most frequent). After everybody follows to the first trick, then the 5/0 'split' is eliminated. Similarly, if everybody follows to the second trick, the suit must now break 3/2. Having played two tricks, you know there is one card left, therefore.. If the one trump left is a loser e.g. the ªQ when the trumps were ªA 8 7 6 opposite ªK 10 9 2 it will not usually be sensible to play the third round as this will draw two of your trumps for one of theirs.

7 card suits 'break' 6/0, 5/1, 4/2 (most frequent) or 3/3. 9 card suits 'break' 4/0, 3/1 or 2/2.

4. TRICK ESTABLISHMENT

The methods of establishing 'extra' tricks are as follows.

a) Promoting the rank of your own cards

b) Establishing 'long' cards by trumping or ducking

c) The finesse

d) Losing the lead for a favourable return

e) Trumping losers in dummy

f) Playing winners to force a favourable discard

g) Trumping losers in hand (reverse dummy)