Page 67 - Learn Bridge Ver2_Neat

Example 2 Í J 10 6 3
Ì Q 10 5 8 points
Ë Q 8 5
Here is a similar hand where we must
Ê K 7 2
reduce the losers early. It shows that
Í A Í 8 5
counting losers is essential in trump Ì K 9 6 2 Ì 8 7 4 3
contracts. With 10 spades it looks as Ë 10 9 7 Ë K J 4 2
though that should be our trump suit. Ê Q J 10 9 3 Ê 6 5 4
Í K Q 9 7 4 2
Ì A J 18 points
Count your top winners. There is 1 heart, Ë A 6 3
1 diamond and 2 clubs. Ê A 8
Add the tricks from other sources. Slow
tricks by power - 5 spade tricks once the Ace has gone. There is also
another heart trick even if the finesse fails. That makes 10 in all. We go
game in spades and get the lead of the ÊQ.

Losers. Your losers are 1 spade, possibly 1 heart and 1 or 2 diamonds.
Maybe one too many so we will proceed with caution.

Manage the hand. Clearly we must reduce our possible diamond losers
before we lose to the trump Ace. The safest way to do this is to win the
club with the Ace and play Ace then Jack of hearts. When we get the lead
back, whatever the suit we can get to dummy with the ÊK and take our
diamond pitch (throw a diamond away) on the ÌQ and then play a trump
and start drawing their trumps.

Example 3
Í 8 5 3 2
Ì 7 6 4 7 points
Another reason not to draw Ë K 6
trumps is that you need to use Ê A 7 4 3
them as entries. Like this -
Í K Q J 9 7 4 Í A 10
Ì K 8 5 Ì Q 9 3 2
Only 21 points between us Ë 5 Ë J 7 3
here but don’t panic, notrump is Ê Q 6 2 Ê J 10 8 5
no good as we have no guards on Í 6
Ì A J 10 14 points
the spade gate, so we must choose
Ë A Q 10 9 8 4 2
a trump suit in this case Ê K 9

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