Playing the cards better

 

Before playing a card, make a plan of how to make the contract

 

  1. In trump contracts take out the opponents trump whenever you hold 8 trumps between your hand and dummy
  2. If the opponents have a single master trump leave it alone
  3. If you do not control trumps dispose of side suit losers if you can before taking out trumps
  4. If you any suits of unequal length between hand and dummy, lead the honours from the shorter suit first to avoid blocking the suit.
  5. Set up long side suit winners to dispose of short suit winners
  6. Do not cash side suit winners until you have set up long suit winners

 

The finesse:

  1. Whenever you have missing honours try leading towards a gap in the honours.
  2. Example: Holding AQ, lead towards these cards, playing Q if the K does not appear
  3. Holding AJ10, lead towards, playing the 10 if either the K or Q does not appear, hoping to capture either the K or Q on the second time
  4. Lead towards a KQ, finessing against the A
  5. Do not lead the Q towards the A to capture the K, unless you hold the J
  6. Try to ‘ruff’ out a missing honour rather than take a finesse

 

In No- trumps

  1. No-trumps is often a race between your long suits and theirs
  2. Guard every suit for as long as possible, until the contract is safe
  3. Hold up playing your winning card to cut communications between defenders
  4. Establish your long suits rather than cash short suit winners
  5. If you have a choice, finesse towards the danger hand

 

First Leads

  1. Good leads are tops of sequences, like AK, KQJ, QJ10 etc
  2. If partner has bid, lead the highest card in partners suit, unless you hold a better suit yourself
  3. Against a suit contract try to avoid leading a low card from away from an honour like an A or K
  4. Try not to lead  A or K unless you hold the next card in the sequence ( e.g AK … KQ…)
  5. Lead 4th highest of your longest suit against no-trumps, provided it has not been bid by Declarer
  6. Only lead Declarer’s suit if you hold eventual winners in the suit

 

Bidding Boxes

Take all the cards for a bid from the BACK of the bid section, and put subsequent bids so that all bids can be shown