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Extra tricks by force
So far you have cashed your ‘top’ tricks and your opponents have not had a look-in. Now consider the next three examples. In each case you are missing a high, winning card (or cards), and in order to make tricks in the suit you must ‘force’ out that card from the opposition partnership.
In (a), you are missing ♠A and need to force it out from the opposition. You can use any high card in the suit to do this, then go on to win the other two high cards when you regain the lead. In this way you promote two tricks by ‘force’. Note that if your opponent withholds their ♠A on the first round, you’ll win the trick anyway, effectively ‘promoting’ the high card you use to lead. You can then sacrifice a second high card in order to promote the third. Both scenarios give you your two tricks.
Example (b) contains the same high cards but in this case it’s better to start specifically with ♠Q (or ♠7 to ♠Q) to force out ♠A. You’ll then hold ♠2 in one hand and ♠KJ in the other, which avoids ‘blockage’.
In (c), you need to force out ♠A and ♠K. To do this, sacrifice two of your sequential cards ♠Q, ♠J, ♠10, ♠9 (note that sequential cards between your hand and dummy’s are worth the same). Then you have promoted the two cards that remain into two force winners.
Useful tip
Don’t be overly concerned about losing the lead, particularly early in the play. You have to lose to win in bridge.
Extra tricks by length
If you can exhaust your opponents of all of their cards in a suit, then your remaining cards, however small, will be promoted into ‘length’ winners. Assuming your opponents have no outstanding trumps, these remaining cards will be extra tricks.
must know
Length before strength – a general rule to follow in bridge: having more cards in a suit is often more important than a higher point count.
In (a), you have four ‘top’ tricks (tricks made consecutively, with high ranking cards), but it would be very unlucky if you didn’t also score ♥2. Your opponents hold five hearts between them. Unless they are all in one hand, they’ll all fall when you win ♥AKQJ. ♥2 will then be a fifth-round winner – by virtue of its length. This scenario depends on how the five missing hearts are split between the opposition. If they’re split 3-2 (most likely), or 4-1, you’ll achieve your extra trick by length. The only problem will be the much less likely 5-0 split.
In (b) start with ♥Q (or ♥2 to ♥Q), as it’s the highest card from the shorter length. Then lead ♥3 back to ♥J, and cash ♥A and ♥K. The six missing cards in the suit will go in these four rounds if the cards are split 3-3 or 4-2. Assuming they are (you’ll develop a habit of counting missing cards as they’re played), you can enjoy a length winner with ♥4. A 5-1 split, however, would prevent this. Fortunately, this is much less likely.
In (c), you have three top tricks but may also make a fourth-round length winner. There are six missing cards, held by the opposition. If the split is 3-3 (three cards in each opposition hand), you have the chance to enjoy a low-card length winner. Start with ♥K (or ♥3 to ♥K), then ♥Q, then ♥4 to ♥A. If all six missing hearts fall (i.e. both opponents follow suit all three times), then ♥6 will be a length winner. You’ll be less lucky if the suit splits 4-2 (or 5-1 or 6-0) as there’ll be an outstanding heart, which is bound to be higher than your ♥6.
must know
Your ability to generate length winners in a particular suit depends on how the missing cards in the suit are split between the opposition partners. If you are missing five cards from your own partnership you can expect them to be split 3-2 between the opposition, perhaps 4-1, or rarely (and less fortunately for you) 5-0.
Trumping
Apart from length winners, the only way to make tricks with twos and threes is by trumping. Which suit is preferable here as trumps: ♠AKQ or ♣65432? The answer is clubs because ♠AKQ rate to score tricks whether or not they are trumps, whereas the only way the small clubs are likely to win is by being trumps. A key challenge of bidding is to discover which one of the four suits holds the greatest combined length between your partnership, as it will probably be best to make that suit trumps.
Drawing trumps
When ‘declaring’ (playing the role of the declarer), it’s often good to get rid of the opposition’s trumps near the beginning of the hand so they can’t trump your winners. This is called ‘drawing trumps’. You should avoid continuing playing your trumps (wasting two together) once your opponents have run out of theirs. You therefore need to count.
Counting trumps
First work out how many trumps are missing, then think of that missing number in terms of how the cards may be split between the opposition partners, bearing in mind that they’ll usually have approximately the same number as each other. Each time you see an opponent play a trump, mentally reduce the number of missing trumps by one.
In this example, the declarer counts five missing trumps. He cashes ♠K and, when he sees both opponents follow suit, reduces his mental count of missing trumps down to three. ♠2 to ♠Q draws two more of the opponents’ trumps. There’s just one more left out (and it’s now obvious that the split is 3-2). The declarer cashes ♠A, drawing the last trump, and doesn’t need to play a fourth round in the trump suit.
must know
Counting trumps is important. Once you have drawn trumps from your opponents, i.e. exhausted them of their trump cards, you should stop playing in the trump suit and turn to others. Carrying on playing in the trump suit would be a waste because your remaining trumps could probably be made separately, by trumping another suit.
Introducing the bidding
Each bid carries a message and is used to tell your partner what type of hand you have: its strength and which suit(s), if any, you’d like as trumps. Your aim is to outbid the other side with a final bid, a ‘contract’ or trick target, that suits both you and your partner’s hands (hence the term ‘contract’ bridge – see p. 228).
must know
By the end of the bidding, the following will be determined:
• whether the deal will be played in a trump suit (clubs, diamonds, hearts or spades), or without a trump suit (‘no-trumps’ – see p. 27);
• how many tricks need to be made by the side who has bid highest and therefore won the contract; and, by deduction, how many tricks their opponents need in order to stop them from winning;
• which player within the highest bidding partnership is the declarer, and which is the dummy.
Opening the bidding
The bidding starts with the dealer, who decides whether to ‘open the bidding’. If he has an average or worse-than-average hand, he says ‘no bid’ or ‘pass’. If he has a better-than-average hand (12 points is a good guide), he opens the bidding by stating his preferred suit as trumps – choosing one of his longest suits.
In (a), the dealer says ‘Pass’ as he has only ten points (an average point score as there are 40 points in the pack divided between four players).
In (b), the dealer has 14 points – enough to open the bidding. He has more spades than any other suit, and would like spades to be trumps, so he opens ‘One spade’ (see p. 21, ‘Making a bid at the One level’).
Once the dealer has bid (or passed), the bidding moves to the next player in clockwise rotation. If the dealer has passed, the second bidder now follows the same process as the dealer: with less than 12 points, he passes, with 12 or more he opens ‘One…’ followed by the name of his longest suit. The third and fourth bidders similarly need 12 points to open the bidding. Occasionally, when the high cards are evenly distributed, none of the four players will hold 12 or more points. The deal is then ‘thrown in’, and the next player in clockwise rotation deals with the other pack.
Making a bid at the One level
The number in a bid is the number of tricks to be won above six tricks. There are 13 tricks in each deal, of which a partnership entering the bidding is expected to make at least six (just under half). When making a bid at the One level, e.g. ‘One spade’ if spades is your preferred trump suit, this means you are contracting to make one trick on top of the six, i.e. seven tricks, with the nominated suit as trumps (spades in this example). Bidding usually opens at the One level, but see p. 146 for cases where you open above the One level.
After the bidding has opened
Once the bidding has opened, 12 points are no longer needed to bid. You can enter the bidding if you have a good, long suit. There are two options: to make a higher bid – going up the series of steps shown in the diagram on p. 22 – or to pass. Note that your bid must be higher than the previous one. This is where the ranking order of suits is crucial: you can bid a higher-ranked suit or ‘no-trumps’ (a deal played without a trump suit – see p. 27) at the same level (e.g. at the One level), but to bid a lower-ranked suit you must ‘raise the level’ i.e. ‘contract for’ (promise to win) one more trick than the previous bidder.
The bidding continues until three players in a row pass, which signifies the end of the auction.
The bidding steps: the number next to the suit refers to the number of tricks plus six that you are contracting to make in the chosen trump suit, or in no-trumps (NT)
A typical bidding sequence
North deals and passes as he lacks 12+ points needed to open the bidding. East (next in clockwise rotation) opens the bidding with 1♥ – he has 12+ points and his longest (or equal longest) suit is hearts. South then bids 2♣ – he doesn’t need 12 points as the bidding has opened, but must raise the level to ‘Two’ (i.e. an eight-trick target) because clubs are ranked lower than hearts. West supports his partner’s chosen suit, hearts, by bidding 2♥, North then bids 3♣, upping his partnership’s target to nine winning tricks out of thirteen. North’s 3♣ bid ends the auction, because it is followed by three passes in a row, and 3♣ becomes the final contract. South becomes declarer and must make nine (or more) tricks with clubs as trumps; the defenders E-W need to win five tricks in order to stop him.
must know
Bidding essentials:
• Open the bidding with 12+ points.
• Once the bidding has opened, 12+ points are no longer needed to make a bid.
• You have two choices: to make a higher bid, or to pass (as in any other auction).
• The player within the highest-bidding partnership who was first to name the trump suit (or no-trumps) becomes the declarer. His partner becomes dummy.
• The defender on the left of the declarer leads the first card.
After the bidding has ended
Each of the four players has the opportunity to bid on the first round. When the bidding ends (three passes in a row), the highest bid becomes the final contract, and the player who first bid the suit (within the highest-bidding partnership) becomes the declarer. The player on the declarer’s left leads the first card (choosing any card to lead). The declarer’s partner then puts down his hand face up, sorted into suits (his hand is ‘tabled’), and, as the ‘dummy’, takes no further part in playing out the deal, the declarer playing cards from his own hand and from the dummy hand. Thus, everyone playing the deal is able to see half the deck: 13 cards in their own hand and the 13 cards laid out on the table by dummy. The advantage for the declarer is that he is the only player at the table who can see his own partner’s cards, and gets to play them.
In this example, South becomes declarer (by virtue of bidding the trump suit, clubs, first). West, on his left, leads, whereupon dummy (North) tables his cards face up, placing trumps (clubs) on his right, and the other suits (preferably with colours split) to his left, with the highest card in each suit nearest dummy, the lowest nearest the middle of the table.
Dummy is tabled
must know
Bridge is a co-operative game: try to inform your partner about your hand, remembering that quantity is more important than quality when it comes to suggesting a trump suit. Bridge is also a competitive game: your opponents are trying to make your life awkward. Do not be fooled or bullied by them.
After the play
Either the declarer fulfils his target (perhaps even making extra tricks), or he doesn’t (because he fails to achieve the contracted number of tricks, by one or more). All eventualities are taken into consideration in the scoring (see pp. 220–7).
want to know more?
• The type of bridge described in this book is ‘Rubber Bridge’, a version of Contract Bridge whose overall objective is to win a ‘rubber’, i.e. the best of three games. For more on scoring games and rubbers, see pp. 220–7.
• Other types of bridge, including Chicago, Duplicate and Minibridge, are outlined on pp. 228–31.
• Other methods of evaluating a bridge hand (besides counting points) are covered on pp. 190–5.
2 Basics
By now you’ve had your first taste of bridge and you’re ready to move on. You’re learning that distribution, or ‘shape’, is the key to bridge. In this chapter you’ll learn more about assessing a bridge hand, finding a trump fit and bidding to a game contract. There’s also guidance on trick-taking and defence.
Bidding
In bidding, your objective is to indicate to your partner what sort of hand you have, and determine how many tricks to aim for. To open the bidding we’ve learnt that you need 12 or more points. If you are able to open, you must also see if your hand is balanced or unbalanced: your whole bidding strategy depends on the answer.
Balanced or unbalanced hand?
The 13 cards of each suit are divided between between the four players. Each hand has a distribution, for example, a hand consisting of three spades, three hearts, four diamonds and three clubs has a distribution of 4333.
A balanced hand contains:
• no void (suit with no cards)
• no ‘singleton’ (suit with just one card)
• not more than one ‘doubleton’ (suit with just two cards)
must know
All distributions (or ‘shapes’) can be subdivided into one of two categories: balanced or unbalanced.
The distributions, or shapes, that satisfy all three criteria are 4432, 4333 and 5332. These are the three balanced shapes:
Opening with a balanced hand
With a balanced hand – no void, no singleton and not more than one doubleton – your bidding plan should revolve around no-trumps (see the following panel). The even spread of a balanced hand means you have no strong preference for a trump suit, which is why bidding no-trumps makes sense. However, an opening bid of One no-trump (1NT) shows a specific point count, so you may need to delay your no-trump bid if your point count is higher in order to convey the right message to your partner.
No-trumps
As the name suggests, ‘no-trumps’ means that the deal is played without a trump suit so in each round played the highest card of the lead suit always wins the trick. Arguably it’s slightly more difficult for the declaring side not to have the security of a trump suit, but no-trumps outranks all the trump suits (see the bidding ladder on p. 22 and notice that no-trumps is higher ranked than spades, the highest ranked suit). No-trumps also scores slightly better (see p. 221), so plays a huge role. Typically, a no-trump bid is made when you have no long suit and no short suit – an even spread, or balanced hand. The most important no-trump bid is the opening bid of One no-trump (1NT) because this describes your hand very accurately to your partner. If you open the bidding with 1NT, in most cases you shouldn’t bid again. Having described your hand so accurately, you should leave further bidding decisions to your partner (see p. 35 for your partner’s response to a 1NT opener).
If you have a balanced hand with 12, 13 or 14 points, you should open the bidding with One no-trump (1NT). In the following example (a), all three hands are 1NT openers. In (b), none of the three hands should open 1NT. The first has too many points (15) so opening 1NT would paint too pessimistic a picture for your partner. Instead you should open One-of-a-suit (1♦ in this case) and plan to bid no-trumps at your next turn. The second hand has just eleven points, so you should pass. The third contains two doubletons: an unbalanced hand. In this case you should open 1♦.
(a) Examples of One no-trump (1NT) opening hands
(b) Examples of opening hands that are not One no-trump (1NT)
Now let’s consider your opening strategy with these three balanced opening hands:
(a) You have 13 points so should open 1NT. Leave further bidding to your partner (except in certain situations that we’ll discuss later).
(b) You have 16 points – too many to open 1NT. You should open 1♥, then show your balanced hand by bidding 1NT at your next turn. By bidding a suit followed by no-trumps you’re indicating to your partner that you have a balanced hand but with too many points to open 1NT (though not enough to open 2NT).
(c) You have 21 points. When your hand has 20+ points (i.e. at least half the pack’s total points in your hand alone) you should tell the good news to your partner by opening at the level of ‘Two’ (2NT).
Strategy for opening bidding (balanced hand)
With a balanced hand (a distribution of 5332, 4432 or 4333), your opening bidding strategy should be:
Useful tip
If you have 20+ points, open at the Two level (to remember, think ‘Two-Twenty’).
Opening with an unbalanced hand
If your opening hand is unbalanced (i.e. the distribution is not 4432, 4333 or 5332), then you should avoid bidding no-trumps at your first two bids. We’ll consider these strategies in more detail later. For now, just remember that your aim is to describe your hand as accurately as possible to your partner, and if your partner responds in a new suit, you are obliged to bid again.
must know
• Introducing a suit into the bidding guarantees at least four cards in the suit are held by the bidder.
• A ‘fit’ means that a minimum of eight cards in one suit are held by the partnership.
Strategy for opening bidding (unbalanced hand)
With an unbalanced hand (not a distribution of 5332, 4432 or 4333), your opening bidding strategy should be:
Finding a fit (making a suit trumps)
There are two primary goals of the bidding:
• To find a trump suit mutually agreeable to you and your partner – this is known as ‘finding a fit’.
• To decide how many tricks to aim for in that chosen trump suit (or no-trumps) – in particular, whether to bid to a game contract.
When finding a fit, there is a minimum number of cards that should be held between you and your partner to warrant making a suit trumps. Clearly, it would be nice to hold all 13 cards in a suit, but this is rare. Eight cards is more likely and considered the minimum to make a good trump suit. This leaves the opponents with five cards in the suit (probably splitting 3-2 between the opposition partners), giving you a substantial advantage.
Three ways the suit cards may be distributed between the partnership for there to be a ‘fit’
A common scenario is that your partner bids a suit, because he holds at least four cards in the suit. You also hold four (plus) cards in the suit so you know there’s a fit. You then decide how many tricks to aim for – particularly whether or not to ‘go for game’.
