Plans, percentages and the plays that buy insurance.
Most suits have a right way to play them, and it is usually not the obvious one. Before you touch a suit, ask how many tricks you need from it — the answer changes the play.
Lead towards honours, never away from them. An honour wins a trick when the hand that must play before it holds the card that would beat it. That only happens if the lead comes from the other side of the table. Cashing an ace first throws away every chance the position offers.
| North | ♠ A J 10 |
|---|---|
| West | ♠ K Q 2 |
| East | ♠ 9 8 7 |
| South | ♠ 5 4 3 |
Lead low from South. West plays low, and North's ten wins because West holds both missing honours and has already committed. Repeat it and the jack wins too. That is two tricks. Cash the ace first and the suit yields one — the king and queen are both still out, and now they are both winners.
Eight ever, nine never. Missing the queen with eight cards, finesse for it. With nine, play the ace and king and hope it drops. The odds are close, and any clue from the bidding beats the rule.
At rubber bridge the extra trick is often the contract, not an overtrick. Work the suit out before you play to trick one, because after that you are guessing with fewer cards to guess from.
A finesse is a coin toss you are allowed to decline. Count your tricks first: if you already have the contract, a finesse can only lose it.
The reflex — see a tenace, take the finesse — is what this section is against. It costs nothing when it works and everything when the hand that wins gets to attack.
| North | ♠ A Q ♦ 3 2 |
|---|---|
| West | ♠ 7 6 ♥ A K |
| East | ♠ K 10 ♥ Q J |
| South | ♠ 5 4 ♦ A K |
South needs three of these four tricks and already has them: two diamonds and the ♠A. Lead a spade to the ace and that is exactly what you take — three. Finesse the queen instead and East's king wins, East leads a heart, and West cashes the other one. One trick. The finesse did not cost the extra trick it was chasing; it cost two you already owned.
The ruffing finesse is the same bet in a trump contract: lead a high card through the missing honour and discard rather than ruff if it is not covered. It is worth taking when a loser goes away on the honour if it works.
Rubber bridge sharpens this. An overtrick is worth 30; going one down vulnerable is 100 and hands the initiative to the opponents. Take the finesse when you need the trick. Decline it when you do not.
A safety play gives up a trick you can afford in order to guard against the layout that would otherwise beat you. It is the opposite instinct to the finesse: you are buying certainty, not chasing a trick.
| North | ♠ A K J 10 9 |
|---|---|
| South | ♠ 8 7 6 5 |
Nine cards, missing the queen and three small. Play the ace and king and you are fine against any normal break — but if either defender started with Q x x x you have just crashed your own tenace and lost a trick you could have kept. Cash one top honour first and watch. If someone shows out you still have A K J 10 sitting over the remaining queen, and the suit comes home either way.
Why this section has no "best card" line. Every other worked position here quotes the solver. This one cannot, and the reason is worth knowing: a double-dummy solver sees all four hands, so it always knows where the queen is and never needs the insurance. A safety play is a bet against your own ignorance, and a machine that cannot be ignorant cannot price it. Judge these plays by asking which layouts beat you, not by asking a solver.
Rubber bridge makes safety plays right more often than tournament play does. There is no field to beat, no matchpoint for an overtrick — only the contract, the part-score and the rubber. Insurance is cheap when the only thing you are protecting is the thing that scores.
One defender can hurt you and the other cannot. Work out which is which, then play the hand so that the harmless one wins the tricks you must lose.
The hold-up. In no trumps, refusing to win your ace cuts the defenders' communication. If the defender with the long suit has no entry, the suit dies with them.
| North | ♠ A 5 4 ♥ 7 6 ♦ 5 4 3 ♣ K Q J 10 9 |
|---|---|
| West | ♠ Q J 10 9 ♥ K Q J 10 9 2 ♦ 8 7 6 ♣ — |
| East | ♠ 8 7 6 ♥ 8 5 ♦ Q J 10 9 ♣ A 4 3 2 |
| South | ♠ K 3 2 ♥ A 4 3 ♦ A K 2 ♣ 8 7 6 5 |
3NT by South. West leads the ♥K. You must knock out the ♣A to get five club tricks, and East holds it — East is the danger hand only because East can still lead a heart back to West. Win the first heart and you make seven tricks: East takes the club ace and returns a heart, and West cashes out. Duck twice and win the third round, and East has no heart left to return. Nine tricks.
The rule of seven is the shortcut: subtract the number of cards you and dummy hold in the suit from seven, and hold up that many times. It is a guide, not a law — count the actual hand when you can.
The robots play this. On the position above the app's engine ducks 20 times out of 20. It is worth knowing that no rule in the engine mentions holding up: it works the position out at the table.
The commonest way to ruin a sound contract is to set a suit up and then find you cannot reach it. Count the entries to each hand before you spend one.
Unblocking. A high card in the short hand is not an asset if it stops the long hand from running. Spend it under a higher one while you still can.
| North | ♠ A 3 2 ♥ K Q J 10 9 8 ♦ 4 3 2 ♣ 2 |
|---|---|
| South | ♠ K 5 4 ♥ A 7 ♦ A K 5 ♣ A 6 5 4 3 |
3NT by South, and dummy's hearts are the contract. The ♠A was dummy's only outside entry and trick one has already spent it. Dummy leads the ♥K. Play the ♥7 and dummy wins — then your ace crashes under the queen on the next round and dummy's ♥J 10 9 8 are stranded, unreachable, and 3NT is down one. Overtake with the ♥A instead. Now you are in hand, you lead the ♥7 back under dummy's queen, and dummy is on lead to run the rest: eleven tricks.
Order of operations. Do the ruffing before you draw trumps if you need dummy's trumps to ruff with. Set up the long suit before you cash the winners that are its entries. The right cards in the wrong order is the most expensive mistake in declarer play, because nothing warns you until it is too late.
The robots play this. The engine overtakes with the ace 20 times out of 20 on the position above.
Sometimes you cannot guess a suit and do not have to. Strip the hand of every safe card a defender could exit with, then hand them the lead and let them open the suit for you.
| North | ♠ A Q ♦ 2 |
|---|---|
| West | ♠ J 10 ♦ 4 |
| East | ♠ K 5 ♦ A |
| South | ♠ 4 3 ♦ 3 |
The spade finesse is wrong — East has the king. Lead spades yourself and you take one trick of the three. Instead lead the diamond. East wins and has nothing left but spades, and whichever one he leads, North plays last to the trick and takes both honours. Two tricks, and no guess.
Elimination is the work; the throw-in is the payoff. The diamond is only an exit because East has no third suit to escape into. Cash the side suits first, and count what the victim has left before you put them in.
In a trump contract there is a second prize: a defender forced to lead a suit both your hands are void in gives you a ruff and discard — you throw a loser from one hand and ruff in the other.
This is the technique that most rewards planning at trick one, because by the time the ending arrives the stripping must already be done.
The opening lead is made blind, before dummy appears, and it decides more contracts than any other single card. The choice is between attacking — setting up tricks fast, at the risk of giving one away — and passive — giving nothing away and waiting.
Let the auction pick. Against a confident game, attack: they have the values and waiting will not help. Against a part-score they crawled into, be passive: your tricks are not going anywhere. Against a slam, lead passively unless you can see two tricks. Against a doubled contract, the double often asks for something specific — listen to it.
| Partner bid a suit | lead it, usually |
|---|---|
| Three touching honours | top of the sequence |
| Long suit, no sequence | fourth highest |
| Nothing attractive | a trump, or a passive spot card |
When not to lead partner's suit: when you hold a singleton honour in it, when your own suit is clearly better, or when the auction says declarer is loaded in it and you would be finessing yourself.
Leading a trump is right when the auction says declarer plans to ruff in dummy — a cross-ruff you take trumps out of is a cross-ruff that does not happen.
Note that this section makes no claim about the app's robots. Their lead conformance has been measured twice and neither measurement could answer the question: most leads barely change the outcome, so there is often no "right" card to conform to.
This is the half of defence nobody teaches. When dummy appears, stop and count declarer's tricks. Then decide one thing: can you afford to wait?
If declarer has enough tricks ready to run, you must attack now and take yours first. If declarer has work to do, sit back — every trick you lead is a trick you might have been given. Make the decision once and defend to it for the rest of the hand.
| North | ♣ K Q J |
|---|---|
| West | ♥ A K ♠ 2 |
| East | ♠ 3 4 5 |
| South | ♣ A ♠ A ♥ 3 |
West is on lead. Dummy's clubs are established and there is no later. Cash the hearts and declarer takes one trick. Exit passively with the spade instead and declarer wins it and runs the clubs — two. The cards are the same; only the plan differs.
The question that decides it is never "what is my best card". It is "how many tricks does declarer have, and am I in time?"
At rubber bridge, beating the contract is the whole objective when they are in game — an undertrick is worth more than any hope of a second one.
Once the plan is made, these are the tools that carry it out — and several of them contradict the beginner's rules on purpose.
Take your ace over declarer's king. "Second hand low" and "cover an honour" are guides for spot positions, not laws. When the trick is the one that beats the contract, take it.
| North | ♥ 9 7 5 ♦ A J 9 8 6 5 3 ♣ 10 6 2 |
|---|---|
| East | ♠ A 10 7 ♥ K Q J 10 8 4 3 ♦ 7 ♣ K 8 |
| South | ♠ J 9 2 ♥ 6 ♦ K Q 10 ♣ A Q J 9 7 4 |
4♥ by East. Partner leads the ♣10, declarer plays the ♣K, and you hold ♣ A Q J 9 7 4. Declarer's trumps are solid: give him the lead and they draw, the hearts run, and there is no second chance at clubs. Play the queen under the king and declarer makes eleven. Take the ace over it and the club suit cashes — seven, three down. A four-trick swing on one card.
Duck to cut communication. The defensive hold-up, and it works for the same reason declarer's does.
Unblock. Play your high card under partner's higher one so partner's suit can run.
Force declarer. Making declarer ruff shortens his trumps; do it often enough and he loses control of the hand.
The robots play this. The app's engine takes the ace 20 times out of 20 on the position above.
Rase plays a full rubber, scores it the traditional way, and grades every bid and card afterwards.
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