Counting the hand, thinking about where the outstanding honours and what Opps' distribution is are all important elements of good Declarer play. Watching spot cards, however, can be just as important. Take this hand, which I played with Eszter5 today. If some of the bids look a little weird, remember we're playing OCP:


Dealer North, EW Game. You are South


South
  AKQ3
  A86
  QJ75
  K5


Bidding
North       East       South       West
No            No          1 ₍₁₎      1 ⁽²⁾
X⁽³⁾          1NT         X⁽⁴⁾          No
2          No          2NT⁽⁵⁾       No
3 ⁽⁶⁾     No          3NT⁽⁷⁾       All Pass

(1) 16+ any shape, not 16-23 4441
(2) Natural
(3) 5-7 any shape
(4) 100% Penalty
(5) Lebensohl, forcing 3
(6) Forced
(7) To play, with Diamond cover

West leads the Ace of Diamonds and Partner goes down with

North (Dummy)
  842
  KJ105
  42
  Q843

A led

South
  AKQ3
  A86
  QJ75
  K5

East plays the 10 on trick 1 and West switches to a small Heart. Do you play West for the 9 or the Queen? Not much to choose given that you have the 865 between the 2 hands. I played the 10 and took East's Queen with my Ace. How do you plan the play from here?

Spades or Hearts 3-3 will give you 9 tricks (7 cards in the Majors and one in each Minor), but you don't really want to open up either Minor any further at this stage.

I started out on the Spades, more to find out about the opposing distribution more than anything else. If West has 9 cards in the red suits, they're not very likely to have 3 Spades. West showed out on the 2nd round (discarding the 3 ) so I held onto my Q and ran the 8!H (If West had covered, I would find a way back to hand and run the 6 on the 3rd round). Actually, in retrospect, this is a good reason for playing the 5 from Dummy at trick 1 in that even if East's 9 forces your Ace, it's easier to finesse a second and 3rd time with KJ10 in Dummy. Anyway, West didn't cover the 8, which won the trick (East playing the 3), so I cleared the Hearts (East discarding the 6 and 9 , and you chuck the 3 on the last Heart).

Have you been watching the spot cards?

West had overcalled 1 , led the Ace, and East played the 10 at trick 1 and subsequently discarded the 9 on the last Heart. This means that West started with AK863 and it's totally safe for me to exit from Dummy with a Diamond to the Jack (East discarded the Jack of Spades). West won and was faced with the choice of opening up the Clubs for me (great for me if they have the Ace, as was likely) or leading a Diamond back into my Q7 from 86. They chose the latter (East discarding another Spade). Now it was a simple matter to lead a small Club towards the Queen. Surprisingly East won the Ace, but had to concede the rest to me for +430.

Even if West declines to take their top Diamond when exit from table with a Diamond (which is probably the expert play, I'm still home for 9 tricks because I've now won 7 and just need to concede a trick to the Ace of Clubs. East has no red cards and West no Majors so it really doesn't matter who wins the Ace of Clubs.

Perhaps surprisingly, making an overtrick in 3NT gave a decent score of 7½ IMPs. Nobody else in 3NT made 10 tricks, and over half of the field were going off in 3NT and even 2 Pairs going off in 2NT. Only 4 other Pairs bid and made 3NT.

I sat through this hand as Dummy (mostly holding my head in my hands, truth be told, and preparing to "type fiercely"), but it's a very illustrative hand on how you should and shouldn't play NT hands: The exact bidding sequence doesn't really matter. As it happened Eszter and I were playing OCP and we ended up in 3NT by North (Eszter) in a fairly lengthy unopposed sequence in which I had shown a balanced positive to her 1 Opening. She had "asked" about both red suits and then signed off in 3NT over my negative responses to those.

Love All, Dealer West

South (Dummy)
  J32
  53
  J92
  AQ1072

North
  K
  AKQ92
  AK643
  94

East leads the 5 . How do you view your prospects?

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Ughhh! Doesn't look terribly promising, but things improve significantly when you play low from Dummy and West plays the Queen of Spades, which allows you fairly confidently to place the Ace of Spades with East. You win with the King, perforce. How do you proceed?

I think the standout play is either a small Diamond towards the Jack (or low from both hands), or a top Diamond and then a Diamond towards the Jack. That probably gives 4 Diamond tricks, 3 Hearts, the King of Spades and Ace of Clubs is 9 tricks, so any 3-2 Diamond split or Q10xx with East or even Qxxx with West will do the trick.. Assuming EW take a Diamond trick and clear the Spades, you will have made your 9 tricks before you even start on the Clubs and so will even have the option of the Club finesse for an additional overtrick at the very end.

Another option (not nearly as good as the above, however, because you developing only 1 trick rather than 2), is to duck a Heart at trick 2, which is fine for 9 tricks as long as the Hearts are no worse than 4-2 and East does indeed have the Ace of Spades.

Eszter didn't quite follow either of those plans . At trick 2 she finessed the Q , which won. Now she led the Jack of Diamonds. West covered with the Queen and she won with her King. Now another Club to  East's Jack and Dummy's Ace and a second Diamond to West's 8 and her Ace. Now she played AKQ , (Dummy shed a Club and West a Spade ont the 3rd trick). 8 tricks so far, which is fine, but she used up all of her winners in both hands without establishing her all-important 9th trick. Now she exited with a Diamond to Dummy's 9 and West's 10. Eszter made her 9 tricks. West played a Club to East's King. East cashed their good Heart but then had to  play away from their A10 toi give Dummy the final trick.

The thing about this hand is that, especially in No Trumps, you generally need to establish tricks before you start cashing them. The probability of the Club finesse winning is exactly 50%. The probability of Diamonds being 3-2 is nearly 68%. If you add on the 4-1 scenarios Where East has any 4-card holding with the Queen or the singleton 10 you're up to nearly 80%. If the Club finesse loses, you are definitely going off whatever the position is elsewhere. Moreover the "chinese finesse" of leading the Jack of Diamonds at trick 3 will only win against complete novice opposition. Any West with Qx or Q10(8)x will always cover. Leading small towards J92 even potentially brings in 4 tricks when East has the singleton 7 or 8 if the aforementioned Club finesse is working, because you can run the 9 next time, picking up Q1085 in the West hand.

At IMP scoring your absolute first duty is to try to make your contract and to give yourself every opportunity to do so. This is something Declarer forgot on this hand Eszter and I defended yesterday:

You are the Declarer in 1NT. Game All

Dummy
  J752
  76
  632
  AK92

Declarer
  106
  AKJ82
  AQJ
  643

The bidding was simple: 1 - 1 - 1NT.

LHO leads the 3 . RHO wins this trick with the Queen and switches to the Diamond 10. You try the Jack and it holds. How do you plan to make your contract?
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First thing you need to ask yourself is "Why the Diamond switch?". It's unlikely that the Queen was a singleton, since Opps have told you they play 4th highest leads. Top probability, therefore, is that RHO has something like KQx and doesn't want to continue Spades and therefore set up a Spade trick for you. Similarly, if the King is onside, which the play to trick 2 suggests, you now have your 7 tricks (2 , 3 and 2 ) and can start looking for overtricks or other ways to make 7 tricks just in case LHO is craftily holding up the K .

First job should be to duck a Club into RHO's hand. If the Clubs are 3-3, that's your 7th or 8th trick right there. Moreover it's a perfectly safe thing to do. The only suit that seems remotely vulnerable is Spades, and if RHO didn't continue Spades at trick 1, they're unlikely to do so at trick 4. RHO wins with the 8 and switches again to the 9 . Do you finesse the Jack? Well personally, no, I wouldn't, not on this trick, anyway. Win this trick, cross to a Club and try the Diamond finesse a second time. The Queen holds. Now a 3rd Club to Dummy's Ace reveals the 3-3 split and you're home and dry for 8 tricks.

At our Table Declarer got himself into a right pickle: The play to the first two tricks was as described above, but now he played a Club to Dummy's King and took the Diamond finesse again (which won). 7 tricks accomplished? Yes, but not quite! Having established his 7 tricks, Declarer now proceeded to establish 7 losers for themselves. He played AKJ of Hearts, LHO won the Jack with the Queen and RHO showed out. LHO now led a Club and Declarer ducked. RHO won this trick with the Queen and switched to the King of Diamonds, knocking out the Ace (LHO showing out). Declarer still has their 7th trick in the Ace of Clubs, but instead chose to play a 4th Heart to LHO's 10 and the defence wrapped up a further three tricks in a Spade to RHO's King, a long Diamond cashed, and a Spade back to LHO's Ace to take the contract one off.

At IMP scoring, this is complete lunacy. Declarer lost a whopping 5¼ IMPs on this simple part-score hand by forgetting that their first and only duty as Declarer is to make their contract. If you feel like going for broke then taking a Heart finesse is better odds than banging down AKJ, but ensure (and take) your contracted tricks first

It's always worth finding out what Opps' carding methods are and trying to "read" what their discards are telling you. This was quite a pleasing hand playing against fairly sophisticated Opps (playing some version of Fantunes) who announced that they were playing "Std count, Upside down attitude and o/e discards". Of course you have to take their signals with a small pinch of salt, because decent Opps will often "lie in their teeth" with their signals and discards, especially if they think that Partner doesn't need to know the truth

You are South, EW Game and you and Partner have bid unopposed to 4

North
AKQ
432
K762
J104

South
1098
AKJ105
Q5
A87

West led the 3 , won in Dummy, East playing the 7.I played a Heart to the Ace and everyone followed small. Just in case there was a ruff happening somewhere (and to confuse the issue somewhat), I now led the Q , hoping to force out the Ace. West took their Ace and continued with another small Spade, win in Dummy, East contributing the 2. I led a second Heart from Dummy and got the bad news with East showed out, discarding the 6 . I inserted the 10 and West took their Queen and played a 3rd Spade, to which all followed (East playing the Jack).

How do you play from here? What do you think is going on on this hand?

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Opps had previously shown themselves to be very aggressive bidders, coming in on few values and not very much shape. Given that West had already shown up with the A and Q , and given the discard of the 6 from an original holding of J762 by East, I decide to place the KQ with East. 2 more rounds of Hearts followed. East discarded the 2 on the first, and to encourage him I discarded the 4 from Dummy on the second. East now made a mistake and discarded the 9 on the second Heart. That made my mind up that East was 4144 shape with a start holding of something like 10984 in Diamonds and KQ92 in Clubs. If East is placing me with QJx, it would explain his reluctance to part with a Diamond, because it would allow me to run the Diamonds.

In case I was wrong about the placement of the Club honours, I now exited with a small Club towards Dummy's J10 and East won with the Queen and then played a Diamond to Dummy's King. The Jack of Clubs now brought down East's King and my 8 was good, because of East's earlier discard of the 9.

This wasn't particularly brilliant play on my part. I was playing a hunch based on West already having shown up with 6 HCP, East's first discard and West's insistence on continuing the Spade "attack" rather than playing a second Diamond after taking their Ace. If West had had a Club honour, it might have been difficult very difficult for them to resist taking it when I played a small Club towards the Jack, but East's discard of the 9 had already persuaded me that they had the Club honours in any case.

Making 4 proved to be worth 5½ IMPs because nearly half the field had gone 1 or even 2 off in the same contract. 3NT is a far better contract than 4 Hearts (4 Hearts, 3 Spades a Diamond and the Ace of Clubs) and had made twice.

You are South and have ended up in 4 after the following sequence:


NS Vulnerable, Dealer East

Bidding
East        South        West       North
 No           1             No          1
 3          No⁽¹⁾          No          3NT
 4          All Pass

(1) We play that a bid in front of Partner here shows extra values

West leads the Queen of Diamonds, and you can see

North (Dummy)
  A1032
  97
  AJ2
  AK102

South
  Q8
  AQJ6532
  54
  Q3

You win the Ace of Diamonds in Dummy. How do you play the Hearts? Actually as the cards lie it doesn't really matter, but I ignored the possible (and unlikely) finesse in favour of the Ace of Hearts and then the Queen, won by West's King, East discarding a Diamond. West now leads the 6 of Spades. How do you plan the rest of this contract?

If you play low from Dummy, then you need to read a bit more about Declarer play generally and counting the hand in particular, for two very good reasons:

• Allowing East to gain the lead at this point is the only possible way you can go off in this contract. If East has the K!S, they'll win, cash the King of Diamonds, and then promote Partner's 10 by leading a 3rd Diamond through.
• If West has the King of Spades, you don't need to finesse against them. Clearly East started with 7-card Diamonds and 1 Heart and it's almost a racing certainty that the majority of the Clubs lie with West, but even if somehow they aren't, you have an absolute 100% squeeze position against both defenders here:

I took the Ace of Spades, crossed back to the Queen of Clubs and ran all of my Hearts, coming down to

  -
  -
  J
  AK10

  Q
  2
  5
  3

On the last Heart Dummy can cheerfully let go of the Jack of Diamonds. If West has the King of Spades, he cannot retain  3 Clubs, and I know for a fact that East cannot possibly have 3-card Clubs, because they must have the King of Diamonds. In fact I could count that East still had 2 Diamonds left and had already discarded 2 Spades, so the only danger to my 12th trick was East having the K!S and K!D and West only having Clubs left at this point. During the run of the Hearts, West had discarded 2 small Clubs, and East had discarded none. If I had been in 6 rather than 4 , I might have considered taking the Club finesse at this point, but in 4 I was content to play West for the King of Spades and still made my 12 because they had the J!C and the King of Spades.

The critical thing about this hand, however, is that you don't need to risk East having the King of Spades. Grade School maths will tell you 1 Spade, 6 Hearts, 1 Diamond and 3 Clubs comes to 11 tricks. It is physically impossible for West to be void in Clubs. That would give East 14+ cards in their hand, since they're already known to have at least 6 Diamonds and 1 Heart, and a Club void with West would give them 7 Clubs. Declarer is cast iron for 11 tricks if they go up with the Ace of Spades at trick 4 and cross back to hand with the Queen of Clubs to draw the last trump.

West started with K976, K104, Q, J8754, and East with J54, 8, K1098763, 96

You are South, NS Game, and Partner and you have rocketed to a small slam in Spades after your 1NT Opening with no opposition bidding:

North
  KJ864
  Q43
  84
  AKQ

South
  A102
  AK7
  K109
  J762

West kindly leads the Ace of Diamonds and continues with another Diamond to East's Jack and your King. How do you plan your play?

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12 tricks clearly presents no problem as long as you can "find" the Queen of Spades. You can finesse for the Queen against either opponent, but which way should you take?

There are no clues from the bidding and no reason to place the Queen with one opponent or the other so it seems like a 50/50 choice. There is, however, one very good reason why you should finesse against West for the Queen: Suppose one opponent or the other holds Q9xx. If East has that holding, you cannot possible draw trumps for no losers. You can only finesse once against East. You can, however, catch Q9xx in the West hand: Cash the Ace and run the 10. If West covers with the Queen and East shows out, you can return to hand with a Heart and finesse again against the 9.

In practice, Partner and I were in 4 rather than 6 and the Spades were not 4-1, but that doesn't detract from the fact that you should be finessing against West here. It's just good practice even if there is only a second overtrick at stake.

There are lots of variations on this theme and positions where an apparent choice is actually no choice: (Obviously this is assuming that there are no clues from the bidding or early play about how to take the finesse. Sometimes there are clues which might override these considerations)

For example:

(1) A8xxx opposite KQ9x
You can only catch J10xx in one hand if it's lying under the KQ9x so you should always cash the Ace first

(2) A109x opposite K7xx
If the hand sitting over the A109x has QJ8x you are doomed to lose 2 trump tricks, but if that holding is sitting under the A109x, then you can escape for one loser, so you should cash the King first.

An instructive hand came up the other day:

You are South at Game All

K109753
1073
8
986

The Dealer is West and you hear

(1 ) - Pass - (1 ) - ??

What do you do?

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If you (or Partner for that matter) utter a peep during this auction, you will almost inevitably push Opps into a game they might not otherwise have bid. Several South's came in with 1 or 2 and invariably EW pushed into 4 or 5 , both of which make. Some EW Pairs didn't need pushing, it's true, and barrelled into game without any interference from NS (5 , 5 and 4 are all making for EW). At our table we stayed silent and the bidding went

1 - 1
2 - 3
All Pass

The full hand was

                      North
                      AQJ
                      Q82
                      Q976
                      J103
West                                  East
842                                  6
-                                      AKJ9654
AJ53                                K1042
AKQ542                            7

                      South
                      K109753
                      1073
                      8
                      986

Sometimes you can be too busy. Here, South has 3-card length in both of Opps' suits, which is not normally the best time to enter the fray on sub-minimum values. If you do come in, and especially if North supports you, East will radically upgrade their hand. It's true that EW probably ought to bid to a game here without being pushed by Opps, but you can forgive them for staying low given the apparent misfit in Clubs and Hearts.

Basic Rules for Declarer play:
(1) COUNT your tricks
(2) Count your immediate Losers
(3) Make a Plan
(4) Keep re-assessing (1), (2) and (3) above in light of the play

Partner very nearly came unstuck on this very simple hand because she didn't do any of the above

You are in 4 after LHO has overcalled Diamonds (the bidding doesn't matter)

North
  K93
  KQ95
  106
  AKJ6

South
  AQJ1052
  J2
  82
  852

West leads the 7

How do you plan the play?
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(1) Count your tricks: 6 Spades, 2 Clubs and 2 Hearts
(2) Count your losers: Ace of Hearts and Two Diamond tricks
(3) Plan: Draw trumps and lead the Jack of Hearts to establish 2 Heart tricks for a Club discard before your other Club Honour is knocked out.

You win with the King in Dummy and the Queen of Clubs appears on your right.

(4) Re-assess: No urgency about the Hearts now since your potential Club loser has just disappeared,  and you still have 3 top losers, but drawing all of the opposing trumps has become potentially more urgent. The only thing that can possibly disturb this ice-cold contract is a ruff of some sort if you don't draw all of the outstanding trumps immediately. Our plan hasn't significantly changed, however.

So lead the King of Spades and continue Spades for up to 4 tricks as required (in practice East shows out on the first round, so you need 4 rounds of trumps. Clearly something a little weird is going on because it's almost impossible for the Q at trick 1 to be a true card unless the 2 overcall was a psyche of some kind (West can hardly have 4 Spades, 5 Diamonds and 5 Clubs).

At the Table Partner took three rounds of Spades ending with the King in Dummy (East discards the 10 and 10 ) and now led a Heart towards the Jack, potentially opening herself up to the very thing that can potentially disturb this contract (a Heart ruff), because regardless of the Club position, if West has 4 Spades and 5+ Diamonds and by the look of it 4 Clubs, East is marked with all of the Hearts and West with a void. In practice West won the J with the Ace and returned ... another Heart.

Partner was still not paying any attention to the cards Opps were playing, because the KQ9 in Dummy are now all good, so all of our Diamond losers in hand can go on them. Only trouble is that we're still in Dummy so Partner sensibly ruffed the 9 high and drew the outstanding trump (Big sigh of relief from across the table LOL). Now she crossed to to the Ace of Clubs (by this point East has discarded two Clubs on Spade tricks), led the K and discarded ... a Club and then the 10 (Clearly she hadn't paid attention at trick 1 ). When she led the 10 all of Dummy's Clubs were good and she could have come out with 11 tricks for an extra IMP.

Amazingly 4 making was still worth 4½ IMPs because several Pairs were somehow managing to go off in this simplest of contracts, and one pair had even allowed 5 X by their EW Opps to make. I still cannot quite believe how they managed to accomplish that defensive feat after seeing the play to the first trick... LOL