Establishing tricks in a suit contract
This hand is a great example of a simple strategy we can use as declarer in a suit contract.
Basic strategy in a suit contract is often the same as it is when playing in notrumps. Establish extra tricks from your long suit!
Simple partscore bidding
I open 1♥, North bids 2♥. It's a pretty good hand with that singleton diamond so it's mildly tempting to try for game but North's 2♥ is a limit bid, showing heart support and 6-9 points. Not really enough so I pass and that's the end of the bidding.
Easy declarer play
And here we are in this contract of 2♥ which is high enough! We can apply a basic declarer play strategy here that's really helpful to know. We're going to draw trumps and set up our long side suit. This is a strategy that you can use on many, many hands, so it's a good place to start.
I'm going to win the ♠A and draw trumps. Sometimes it's a bit hard to remember all the trumps that have gone, but we can relax a bit. We've got nine hearts between the two hands. The opposition have got four, so we just have to keep playing trumps until the opposition have played their four.
After drawing trumps it's really tempting to take all your aces and kings. But what we want to do next is establish our long side suit.
Notice we've got eight clubs between the two hands. There's 13 in the pack, so that means the opposition have got five. All we need to do here is keep playing clubs and eventually the opposition are going to run out. Play the Ace of Clubs and another club. You'll lose the lead but when you get it back you play another club, losing that too!
Now the opposition have got no more clubs and, finally, our last club becomes a winner.
tags: #declarerplay
