Declarer Play - Throwing Losers on Winners

The contract is 4♥. The opening lead is the K♠.

Dummy
♠T65
♥8432
♦A43
♣AKQ

Declarer
♠842
♥AKQ765
♦J8
♣J2

What do we do first? We count our losers in a trump contract. How do we do that?

First we take one hand and only one hand. We will look at Declarer's hand since it has more trump in it. Then we look at how many tricks we will lose in each of the suits. Then we figure out how we could get rid of any possible losers.

♠3 losers -- In our hand we have the 842. We don't have any high cards in Dummy. We will lose 3 tricks.
♥0 losers. We shouldn't lose a trump trick.
♦1 loser. We have the J8 in our hand. We have the Ace in Dummy to take care of the 8♦ but we have to lose the J♦.
♣0 losers. We have two small ♣ in our hand but the AK in Dummy will take care of them. We won't lose a trick in this suit.

♠3
♥0
♦1
♣0

Here we have 4 losers. It looks like we are going to lose all our ♠ losers right away. Sure enough, if you play low from Dummy at trick 1 the opponents play 3 rounds of ♠ and then play the K♦.

We have this left:

Dummy
♠
♥8432
♦A43
♣AKQ

Declarer
♠
♥AKQ765
♦J8
♣J2

Right now we have to win the A♦ if we want to make our contract. We have lost 3 tricks and if we play a small ♦ we will lose that one also. So now we have this:

Dummy
♠
♥8432
♦43
♣AKQ

Declarer
♠
♥AKQ765
♦J
♣J2

Now we have to figure out how to get rid of our ♦ loser. Any ideas?

It's tough to see what to do here. Let's take out trump (that can't be wrong) and look at what's left.

Dummy
♠
♥2
♦43
♣AKQ

Declarer
♠
♥765
♦J
♣J2

We still have that losing ♦ trick. What can we do about it?

How about playing the AK♣ from Dummy. You are over in Dummy and play the Q♣. What card will you play from your hand?

That's right. The losing ♦! That's how you get rid of that loser -- you throw it on a winner from Dummy!

(This one my students find tough to explain what they will do but they get it right when they play out the hand.)

Always try to be on the looking for unequal lengths in suits other than trump. That way you might be able to set up a winner with the long suit in order to throw away a loser.

Let's look at some examples:

Here trump is ♥. You have taken out the opponents trump. The ♣ in your hand is a loser. You cannot lose any more tricks. What will you do?

Dummy
♠
♥
♦AQ42
♣

Declarer
♠
♥A
♦K8
♣2

Answer: Play the ♦ and throw away the losing ♣ on the ♦.

Be careful here! You need to play the HIGH cards from the SHORT side first. Play the K♦ (low from Dummy) and then the 8♦ back to the A♦ in Dummy. Now you can play your Q♦ and throw away your losing ♣.

Another example:

Dummy
♠AKJ6
♥QJ83
♦AK4
♣K2

Declarer
♠Q2
♥AK74
♦Q87
♣AJ93

The contract is 7♥ and the lead is the 6♥.

What do you do? Count your losers. We will look at Declarer's hand.

♠0 losers -- Since we have the AK in Dummy we won't lose a trick here.
♥0 losers. We shouldn't lose a trump trick.
♦0 losers. We have the AK in Dummy to take care of our low cards in this suit.
♣2 losers. The K can take care of one of our little ♣ but we can lose 2 tricks in this suit.

We have to figure out how to avoid any ♣ losers. Is there a way?

We can try the ♣ finesse. If that works then maybe we will not have a ♣ loser.

That's one way. Is there a better way?

The finesse is not guaranteed. We might lose to the Q♣. We'd rather have a sure thing. We can guarantee this contract by throwing away our ♣ on our winners in Dummy. But which winners? The ♦ winners? Or the ♠ winners?

Here it MUST be the ♠ winners. You cannot throw away any losers on the ♦ winners because you have to follow suit to all the ♦. When you play ♦ winners from Dummy you must play losing ♦ from your hand. You have the same number of ♦ in Dummy as you do in your hand. Therefore you will NOT be able to throw away losers on that suit.

But look at the ♠ suit. You have 4 ♠ in Dummy but only 2 ♠ in your hand. When you play the ♠ suit after 2 rounds you no longer have any ♠ left so you can throw away whatever cards you want. Throw away your losing ♣ now.

What could go wrong?

Well don't forget to take out the opponents trump. If the opponents have trump they can trump your high cards. Take away all their little trump so they can't do that.

Another thing that could go wrong is the ♠ suit gets blocked. Remember to play the HIGH card from the SHORT side first. So play the Q♠ from your hand (the 6 from Dummy) and then the 2♠ over to the J♠ in Dummy. Now you will be in Dummy to play the AK♠ and throw away your losing ♣.