Declarer Play in NoTrump Contracts
STEP TWO: REVIEW THE CONTRACT WE ARE IN
STEP THREE: count your sure winners and compare with your needs
If your needs are met,
DON'T GET FANCY AND BLOW THE CONTRACT. You may, however, LOOK FOR A SAFE WAY TO
MAKE AN OVERTRICK.
In Notrump, it is almost always the case THAT WE USE ONLY ONE TECHNIQUE AND THAT IS TO SET UP A LONG SUIT and use finesses when needed.
IF ONE OF THOSE SUITS PRODUCES MORE TRICKS THAN THE OTHER ONE, RUN WITH THE ONE THAT PRODUCES MORE. IF THE TWO SUITS ARE EXACTLY EVEN, I.E. BETWEEN DUMMY AND YOUR HAND YOU HAVE SAY 7 CLUBS AND SEVEN DIAMONDS?? WHICH OF THESE WILL YOU SET UP??
LOOK AND SEE IF THE TWO SUITS ARE OF THE SAME SHAPE. BY THIS I mean: Do you have 4/3 in each or do you have 4/3 in one and 5/2 in the other?
Notice that 5/2 will in effect PRODUCE MORE TRICKS
What if they are both 4/3 -- YOU CHOOSE THE WEAKER OF THE TWO SUITS!!!!!
Choose the suit with the worse HONORS!!!! THIS is counter intuitive…BUT IF YOU ESTABLISH THE STRONGER SUIT FIRST, YOU WILL LOSE ALL YOUR TRANSPORTATION IN DOING SO, AND THEN YOU will HAVE NO TRANSPORTATION TO ESTABLISH THE SECOND SUIT.
Time to teach you a secret…
WE do not AVOID our weak suits -- WE LEAD them out, AND WE DO SO trying to convince BOTH OPPONENTS THAT WE HAVE winners! In many cases, if you lead a suit in Notrump, the opponents WILL NEVER LEAD IT BACK!!
In most cases ...BOTH OF THE OPPONENTS WILL THINK YOU HAVE THE MISSING HONORS AND NOT HIS PARTNER THE OTHER ANSWER OF COURSE IS ..use good bidding and DON'T BE OPEN IN A SUIT
IF YOU ARE GOING TO TAKE A FINESSE, DO NOT USE A CARD IN THE FINESSE IF YOU DON'T HAVE THE CARD IMMEDIATELY BELOW IT.
LOOK AT THIS COMBINATION: YOU HOLD THE ACE, QUEEN , X IN DUMMY AND YOU HOLD THE JACK, X, X, IN YOUR HAND. HOW DO YOU FINESSE?
You play small to the queen. If it holds, you then play the ace hoping to DROP THE KING DOUBLETON THEREBY SETTING UP YOUR JACK. You do NOT start with the Jack since you do not have the 10.
IF YOU DON'T HAVE THIS BOOK get it!!! IT WILL Cost you about 10 bucks in paperback but most libraries have it for free.
It works for Declarer as well as partner on defense. EVERYTIME YOU ARE DECLARER AT NOTRUMP, you must stop and use this rule if the lead appears that it applies. YOU WILL GAIN VALUABLE INSIGHT INTO THE HAND. The rule of 11 WILL GIVE YOU A COMPLETE COUNT ON A SUIT IF THE LEAD IS THE TWO.
Let’s pretend that the two of clubs is led. Using the Rule of 11, it means there are NINE CARDS IN THE REMAINING THREE HANDS THAT CAN BEAT IT. Count, dummy, count your hand, now you know how many clubs are left in the other opp’s hand.
The Rule of 7 works in NOTRUMP CONTRACTS. Let’s say you have
a threat suit. This would be a suit where you have only one stopper. The
opponents are threatening to RUN THIS SUIT ON YOU AFTER YOUR STOPPER IS GONE.
If you lose this card, they will run the suit and you are kaput. In this case,
it is ADVISABLE TO HOLD UP the suit: that is…DO NOT TAKE the WINNER RIGHT
AWAY.
EXCEPTION # 1: do not use the rule of seven if you have a SECOND THREAT SUIT.
Exception # 2: DO NOT USE THE RULE OF SEVEN IF YOU HAVE SO MANY TRICKS IN THE OTHER SUITS...YOU WOULD BE GIVING AWAY TRICKS TO USE THE RULE.
The Rule of Seven does not work in trump contracts but THE HOLDUP ITSELF DOES.
If you hold up in A TRUMP, it will FORCE THE OPPONENT TO LEAD ANOTHER SUIT. ACE , JACK TENACES WILL OFTEN PRODUCE SUCH A POSITION FOR YOU.
Step five...LOOK AT THE
BIDDING AND THE LEAD. If either has an impact on your line of play, adjust your
line of play.
Step six...look at your
TRANSPORTATION. If you do not have the transportation for your plan, adjust
your plan. You WILL NOT HAVE THE LUXURY OF TRUMP FOR TRANSPORTATION, so the
question of transportation is particularly important in a Notrump
contract.
Sometimes you will have to give up a good trick to assure
that you will have sufficient entries to run a long suit in dummy or in your
hand. This is equivalent to a sacrifice in chess.
EXAMPLE:
Let’s pretend you have ace, king, seven long of a suit in dummy, you have x, x in hand AND YOU HAVE NO OTHER ENTRIES TO DUMMY. Normally you would play ace, king of this suit since you have nine of them, expecting the suit to break 2/2 but what if it doesn’t break that way? In that case, on the first trick you play small, sacrificing a trick and you still have a small card to reach the remaining ace, king , six long. You ensure taking 6 tricks at the sacrifice of one.
Esoteric Techniques
1. dummy reversals
2. strip, throw-in and endplay
3. coups
4. Squeezes
The strip, throw-in and endplay are all the same thing. We simply determine which opponent has a card or a suit we want lead, then we STRIP HIM OF ALL THE OTHER SUITS AND THEN THROW HIM IN SO THAT HE IS NOW ENDPLAYED… THAT IS HE IS NOW FORCED TO LEAD THE SUIT WE WANT HIM TO PLAY. For the strip and throw-in. This is related to the knowledge that you will want a suit lead by an opponent. The endplay works for those WHO DO NOT IMPATIENTLY TAKE STUPID FINESSES. IF you are patient and you see that it will do you NO GOOD TO TAKE A DUMB FINESSE, then you WILL FIND YOURSELF SETTING UP ENDPLAYS MUCH more often.
Dummy reversal
YOU HOLD: QUEEN, JACK, X OF TRUMP IN DUMMY, and YOU HOLD: ACE, KING, X, X, X IN HAND. HOW MANY TRUMP TRICKS WILL YOU TAKE??
WE ASSUME THAT THE DUMMY’S TRUMP WILL NOT BE AVAILABLE FOR RUFFS, so five. Now if we have 8 trump, how many do they have?? 5, AND THEY WILL SPLIT 2/3, so now I am going to tell you how you might get SIX TRUMP TRICKS. You REVERSE THE DUMMY!!!! YOU DO IT WITH A reasonably long suit in dummy. It can be a suit with no honors. It can be a suit with all the honors. IT DOES NOT MATTER. If YOU CAN FIRST GET THREE RUFFS IN THIS SUIT IN YOUR OWN HAND INCLUDING THE USE OF EITHER THE ACE OR THE KING, YOU WILL THEN HAVE SUFFICIENT TRUMP IN DUMMY TO PULL TRUMP AND YOU HAVE NOW JUST GOTTEN SIX TRUMP TRICKS!!!
If you see you can ruff their suit before pulling trump do you always do it?
What it takes is ...that long suit and SUFFICIENT OUTSIDE TRANSPORTATION TO GET TO THE DUMMY ENOUGH TIMES TO MAKE THOSE THREE LEADS FOR RUFFS AND NORMALLY ONLY IF THE RUFFS ARE DONE IN DUMMY. If the opponents have bid spades, and you are in hearts holding the following: YOU HAVE THREE HEARTS IN DUMMY AND A VOID IN SPADES IN YOUR HAND. YOU HAVE FIVE HEART TRUMPS AND FOUR SPADES TO THE ACE
THE FIRST RULE IS THIS: IF YOU HOLD A VOID IN THEIR SUIT PROVIDING RUFFS AND YOU ALSO HOLD THE ACE OF THEIR SUIT, you must ALWAYS RUFF FIRST KEEPING CONTROL OF THEIR SUIT WITH THE ACE. If YOU USE THE ACE, and THEN TRY TO RUFF, you will no longer HAVE CONTROL OF THEIR SUIT.
If you have an instant sluff and you can wait to use it ....ALWAYS WAIT BECAUSE at the beginning of the play YOU WILL NOT KNOW WHICH IS THE BEST SUIT TO SLUFF. If you ARE DEFENDER, AND IT IS APPARENT THAT DECLARER HAS AN INSTANT SLUFF... make HIM USE IT RIGHT AWAY. FOR example, my partner has just opened a card. As defender, I now see a solid club suit on the board. IF I AM NOW IN THE LEAD..I will OFTEN LEAD RIGHT INTO THOSE SOLID CLUBS forcing the Declarer to make his choice of sluffs RIGHT NOW..!!!! REMEMBER ..
DECLARER WILL WANT TO ESTABLISH A SECONDARY SUIT RIGHT AWAY
but HE WILL NOT WANT TO PLAY THE DAMN SUIT UNTIL HE HAS TRUMP OUT SO FORCE HIM. THE ART TO GOOD DEFENSE IS TO BE ABLE TO PUT YOURSELF IN THE MIND OF THE DECLARER AND THEN FORCE HIM TO DO ALL THE THINGS HE WOULD NOT DO.
Coups
TRUMP COUP – REFER TO WATSON’S BOOK. It is very valuable when you have your right hand opponent holding your missing trump honors without dummy having any to lead.
The Squeeze
There are two kinds: the simple squeeze and the fancier DOUBLE SQUEEZE. IN THE FIRST, YOU ARE SQUEEZING ONE OPPONENT, AND IN THE SECOND YOU SQUEEZE THEM BOTH. I do not care if any of you LEARN HOW TO DO A SQUEEZE. IT IS ONLY A VERY RARE HAND THAT CAN BE MADE SOLELY WITH THE USE OF THE SQUEEZE. In most cases, there WILL ALWAYS BE AN EASIER WAY TO MAKE THE HAND. In most cases if you have to resort to a squeeze, YOU ALREADY HAVE MISPLAYED THE HAND
Step One: For a Squeeze to work, you must RECTIFY YOUR LOSSES. A squeeze will only work if you HAVE ONLY ONE POTENTIAL LOSER LEFT. IF YOU HAVE TWO POTENTIAL LOSERS, THERE can be no squeeze, so...lose that second trick.
Step Two: You MUST HAVE
THE ABILITY TO GET TO EITHER HAND.
Step Three: You must be in position to SQUEEZE A WINNER OUT OF YOUR OPPONENT OR OPPONENTS BEFORE YOU YOURSELF HAVE TO PLAY THAT SUIT.