Secrets of declarer play

Many players have a breakdown as soon as trumps do not break in their favor. A small dose of anticipation regarding the order in which you cash your honors can sometimes allow guarding against such a setback. Do not naively…

W N E S 2♦ Pass 2♥ Pass 2♠ Pass 4♠ Lead: ♣Q. The only card that can become an entry to dummy and let you cash the King of Diamonds and thus find your tenth trick is the 10 of…

A contract is decided more often than you would believe… at trick one! Rather than letting yourself be seduced by a well-oiled automatism that might cause your defeat later on, systematically take the time to make a plan. For the…

For setting up and cashing a long suit you always need a certain number of entries in the hand of the long suit. A single missing entry and your hard-earned tricks from length will sit unusable, taunting you for the…

In No-Trump contracts, just like in suit contracts, it is necessary for declarer to carefully manage communications between the two hands. The slightest approximation can prove fatal. Many declarers rapidly let their guard down when they have a long suit…

The nightmare of any declarer who aims at ruffing his losers is obviously to be overruffed with an illegitimate trumpby one of the defenders. To avoid this disastrous fate, we have several methods at our disposal. The most obvious is…

Sometimes, declarer doesn’t have the possibility of a ruff in the short hand at the start of the play, but he can manage to create one thanks to a discard. Let’s illustrate this with a very simple example: W N…

It is important to understand the difference between an open ruff and a closed ruff. A ruff is said to be open if it can be made without losing a trick in the suit of the ruff. Examples of open…