Planning The Play Tutorial - Suits
----------------------------------
In this tutorial, I will discuss guidelines for planning the play as
declarer in suit contracts. This is a followup to the tutorial on
planning the play in NT contracts from 2 months ago. I suggest you
review that tutorial, as many of the principles are the same.

I cannot emphasize enough that the most important habit to develop is,
once the opening lead is made and dummy is tabled, STOP; 
do not play to the first trick until you have formulated a complete
plan on how you will play the hand. Don't just think about the suit
that was led or the trump suit; think about how you are going to play
all 4 suits.

Here are some modifications to the method you can use to formulate
a plan (note that the basics are similar to the material in the NT
tutorial, with some enhancements):

1) For all 4 suits, calculate how many winners and how many losers
you expect. Use the principles we developed in the lesson on
suit combinations. Note that there are some advantages to a suit
contract over NT when counting winners and losers:

a) Regarding losers, once you run out of a suit you have no more
losers in that suit because you can trump any low cards in that
suit (assuming you still have some cards in the trump suit).

b) Regarding winners, you can set up a long side (non-trump) suit
without necessarily losing as many tricks as you would have to in NT.
This is because once you run out of the suit in one hand, you can
lead the suit and trump until you have eliminated that suit from
both defenders' hands.

2) Try to draw trumps as soon as possible. You do not want the
defenders to trump your winning tricks. However, on many hands
you must not draw trumps immediately. There are 2 common reasons
why you might delay drawing trumps: 

a) You need to trump some low cards in the hand with the shorter trump
suit. This situation occurs frequently when declarer has 5 trumps,
dummy has 3 trumps, and dummy has a singleton or doubleton
in a side suit.

b) You need to force out some side suit high cards from the defenders
while still retaining cards in the trump suit, to ensure that
defenders cannot cash winners in another side suit.

3) Formulate a plan whereby you lose the lead no more than the 
number of times needed to make your contract, and you are still able
to establish enough winners.

4) Make sure that once you establish your winners, you still have at
least one entry that allows you to cash the winners.

Review the declarer play techniques in the NT tutorial. Here are
some additional techniques:

1) When determining how many rounds of trump to draw, most people
(including bridge experts) find it easier to simply remember
how many trumps remain in the defenders' hands. Counting how many
trumps have been played (which is how many people are taught) is
more difficult. For example, if you have 9 trumps and one defender
shows out on the 2nd round, the other defender started with 3 and
has one more left after the 2nd round.

2) When counting trump winners, don't forget to count the tricks
where you ruff a card in one hand. A good technique for counting
trump winners is to count how many winners you have in the hand
with the longer trumps, and add the number of times you trumped
in the hand with the shorter trumps. Here are some examples (assume
you have a trump suit with no losers):

a) If you have 5 trumps and dummy has 3, you have 6 trump winners if
dummy trumps once.

b) If both you and dummy have 4 trumps, you have 5 winners if either
you or dummy trumps once. Similarly, you have six winners if you
or dummy trumps twice (but you cannot draw 3 rounds of trump before
trumping).

c) Here is a slightly more complicated example. Suppose you have
5 trumps and dummy has 4. If you trump twice in your hand, you have
six trump winners (the 2 trump tricks from your hand plus the 4
trumps in dummy). This is known as a "dummy reversal."

3) If the only defenders' trump remaining is higher than any of
your trumps, it is often advantageous to not bother to draw it.
You may be able to score your lower trumps by ruffing a loser,
rather than wasting them on a trick that the defense is going to
win anyway.

Here is an example hand:

    (Dummmy)
    Kxx
    Ax
    Jxx
    xxxxx
    
    (You)
    AQxxx
    xxx
    KQx
    Ax

Opening lead is the K of hearts.

You should plan the play as follows:

1) Counting the number of winners and losers:

S - 6 winners/no losers (5 trumps plus a heart ruff in dummy)
H - 1 winner/1 loser
D - 2 winners/1 loser
C - 1 winner/1 loser

You have 10 winners and 3 losers, so you should make your contract.

2) You cannot draw 3 rounds of trump immediately, because one of
dummy's trumps must be used to trump a heart. Therefore, you should
win the A of hearts and immediately lose a heart. You can then
trump a heart, draw 3 rounds of trump, and lose the A of diamonds.

Quiz
----

For each hand presented below, assume the contract is 4S.
Given the opening lead, plan the play.

1.  (Dummy)
    Kxxx
    xx
    Kxxx
    xxx
    
    (You)
    Axxxx
    AKxx
    Ax
    xx

Opening lead is a club. Defense cashes 2 clubs and leads a third club.

1) Counting the number of winners and losers:

S - 6 winners/1 loser if trumps split 3-1 (4 trumps plus 2 heart ruffs in dummy)
H - 2 winners/0 losers
D - 2 winners/0 losers
C - 0 winners/2 losers

You have 10 winners and 3 losers, so you should make your contract.

2) Draw 2 rounds of trump; if trumps split 3-1 leave the high trump out.
Plan to trump 2 hearts in dummy. Even if your opponent over ruffs dummy, you will
still have 6 trump tricks (5 in your hand, plus one ruff in dummy).
 
2.  (Dummy)
    Kxxx
    xxxx
    KJx
    Kx
    
    (You)
    Axxx
    Ax
    Q10xx
    Axx
    
Opening lead is the K of hearts.

1) Counting the number of winners and losers:

S - 4 winners/1 loser (3 trumps plus 1 club ruff in dummy)
H - 1 winner/1 loser
D - 3 winners/1 loser
C - 2 winners/0 losers

You have 10 winners and 3 losers, so you should make your contract.

2) Win the A of hearts. Draw 2 rounds of trump. Knock out the A of diamonds.
Even if the opponent with the A of diamonds draws a round of trump and then
plays a heart, you will still have a trump in your hand so you will only lose
one heart. You can then play your diamonds, throwing dummy's last heart,
and take the last 3 tricks with KA of clubs and dummy's last trump.

3.  (Dummy)
    KQxx
    AKxxx
    xx
    xx
    
    (You)
    Axxxx
    x
    Axxxx
    xx

Opening lead is a club. Defense cashes 2 clubs and leads a diamond.

This hand is a bit trickier. On the surface, your winners and losers are as
follows:

S - 6 winners/0 losers (5 trumps plus 1 diamond ruff in dummy)
H - 2 winners/0 losers
D - 1 winner/1 loser
C - 0 winners/2 losers

The good news is you have 3 losers. The bad news is you only have 9 winners.

You must come up with a plan to manufacture another winner. If hearts are 4-3,
you will have 3 heart winners once you ruff 2 hearts; this will provide you with
your tenth winner.

2) Win the A of diamonds. Play the A of spades. Play the A of hearts.
Ruff a heart. Lead a low spade to the K. Ruff a heart. Lead your last spade
to the Q, drawing the last trump (assuming a 3-1 split). The K of hearts will
draw the opponent's last heart (since this is the 4th round of hearts),
and your low heart will be good. You will lose a diamond on the last trick.

This technique is known as a dummy reversal, because you shortened declarer's trumps
to 3 cards (by ruffing 2 hearts) and dummy has 4 trumps. Even many experienced players
find this technique difficult to visualize, because they take a declarer-centric
view of the hand -- they would go down with the hands as shown, but would have made
the hand if the North and South hands were reversed!

4.  (Dummy)
    xxxxx
    x
    AQ10x
    xxx
    
    (You)
    AKxxx
    Axx
    xxx
    xx

Opening lead is a club. Defense cashes 2 clubs and leads a club.

(Hint: there is a way to guarantee the contract even if East
has both the K and J of diamonds.)

On the surface, your winners and losers are as follows:

S - 7 winners/0 losers (5 trumps plus 2 heart ruffs in dummy)
H - 1 winner/0 losers
D - 1 winner/2 losers
C - 0 winners/2 losers

You have 9 sure winners and potentially 4 losers. If West has either the K or J of
diamonds (75% probability), you will have 10 winners and 3 losers, very good odds.

However, there is a way to make the contract 100% of the time (assuming a 2-1 trump
split).

The basic idea is to eliminate clubs and hearts from both hands, and throw East in
with a diamond. East will then either have to lead a diamond, giving you 2 guaranteed
winners, or lead a club or heart, allowing you to throw a losing diamond as you ruff
in dummy. This technique is known as a "strip end play", and occurs frequently in
real life.

Therefore, you should play the hand as follows:

1) Ruff the club.

2) Play the A of hearts. Ruff a heart.

3) Play a spade to the A. Ruff a heart.

4) Play a spade to the K.

5) Trumps have been drawn. Neither you nor dummy has any clubs or hearts left.
Play a diamond and insert the 10.

6) Assume East wins with the J. (If he wins with the K, or doesn't win, you have
made your contract.) If he leads a diamond, you are guaranteed 2 diamonds with the Q
and A. If he leads a heart or club, you eliminate a diamond loser by throwing a 
diamond from your hand while you ruff in dummy.

In general, it is often good technique to eliminate a side (non-trump) suit from both
hands before losing a trick to the opponents. This means they cannot lead the
eliminated suit unless they want to give you a ruff and discard, which usually provides
you with an extra trick.



 