Introduction
You are the declarer in a contract with a trump suit. Your partner’s cards are the dummy hand, displayed on the table for everyone to see. As the declarer, you are responsible for playing both hands. You will play the cards from dummy or your partner will play a card only as you direct.
When a player is void in the suit that had been led, then the player can play a trump, otherwise the player must follow suit. In play with a trump suit, the highest trump wins the trick or, when no trump is played, the highest card in the suit that was led wins the trick. This page gives you strategies that help you win as many tricks as you can before you lose control. Hopefully, that will be enough tricks to win the contract.
Many of the Bridge concepts on these pages comes from How to Play Bridge Like a Boss by Anthony Medley. I will try to denote the ideas that are my own.
Maintaining Control
Maintaining control is important in trump-suit play. You have control when you have stoppers in each suit or at least one trump in the hand with voided suits, assuring that you will regain the lead even when the voided suit is led. You lose control when you can’t get the lead back from the defenders. A stopper is a high card in a suit with enough supporting cards. In the suit Jxxx, the Jack is a stopper.
Counting Losers
In trump play, the trump suit can cover cards that would be losers in a No Trump contract, so concentrate on counting losers in the primary hand, usually the strongest hand or the hand with the most trumps. If you are not sure which hand is primary, choose the one with the fewest losers. Be sure to include the winners in the other hand that cover losing cards in the primary hand.
Count losers in each suit. The losers are the missing high cards that would win tricks before you establish the suit. Add the losers in each suit to arrive at total losers.
Examples:
The primary hand holds A, x. Partner holds K, J, x. You have no losers, because the King is a winner that covers your loser.
The primary hand holds K, 10, x. Partner holds A, x, x, x, x. You have 1 loser, because the winning Ace only covers the 10.
The primary hand’s trump suit holds J, x, x, x, x, x. Partner holds A, x, x. You have at most 3 losers after taking the Ace and opponent’s cards are split 4-0.
General Strategy
Count losers. If there are too many losers to make your contract, then you need to apply tactics that turn some of the losers into winners. Then plan how you will make enough winning cards that offset your losers. You make winning cards by applying the tactics in Playing Fundamentals, including the tactic of trumping cards when there is a void in a suit accompanied by a trump card.
Before each trick, Review your losers and choose what tactic can be applied next. Remember that a long suit can help only after the defenders’ trumps have been pulled, so pulling trumps early is usually a good idea. However, there are times when pulling trumps are not recommended. When you have less than 8 trumps and a shortage of trump honors, consider not pulling trumps. When you discover a bad split in defenders’ trumps, consider not pulling trumps. If you have a 6-card trump-suit in your hand with 3 honors, consider pulling trumps.
Making Trump Suit Strategy
The South hand is declarer at 4 ♥. West leads the 8 of ♦;. The first step is to work out a strategy.
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The North hand has 12 HCP and 13 points overall. The South hand has 12 HCP and 14 points. The combined points in the two hands are 24 HCP and 27 points.
The points are about even, between North and South. but South has more trumps. South is the primary hand. There are no losers in ♠. There is 1 loser in ♦. There is 1 loser in ♣. There are 3 losers in the trump suit, ♥. There are a total of 5 losers.With only 4 trumps held by the defense and favorable split, a finesse could hold trump losses to 1 trick.
If we establish the ♣ suit and discard a losing ♦ we could hold total losses to 2 tricks.The goal is to turn 3 of 5 losing tricks into winners.
Review Questions
Some questions may have more than one correct answer.
p The North hand is declarer at 5 ♦. East leads the 5 of ♥.
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Use the North and South hands to answer the next 3 questions.
1. What is the primary hand?
2. How many losing tricks are in the primary hand?
3. what suit should you attack first?
The South hand is declarer at 4 ♠. West leads the 9 of ♣.
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Use the North and South hands to answer the next 3 questions.
4. What is the primary hand?
5. How many losers are there?
6. Which suit should be attacked to get the missing trick(s)?
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♠ ♥ ♦ ♣