CHAPTER 25

The Plan’s the Thing

No matter where you travel, there is a game of bridge and therefore new friends nearby.

We have come full circle. In the first chapter, we asked whether you should play the ace or the queen on the first trick of a hand. Before you could answer, you had to consider the question in the context of the whole hand. As you have seen throughout the book, on every hand, before you can decide whether to develop tricks by promotion, or length or through the finesse or, in fact, whether you need to develop tricks at all, you have to consult your plan. The plan’s the thing.

Before you make a decision on how to play a particular suit, or whether or not to play a suit, you need to consult your plan. You need to know how many tricks you need or how many losers you can afford, and what options you have. In organising your plan, choose the option that gives you the best chance of making the contract, trying to combine options whenever possible. Take a look at what may happen if you have to give up the lead to the opponents. Only then are you ready to put the plan into action and play your first card.

Over Zia’s shoulder

Hand 1 Dealer: West

N	E	S (Zia)	W
			Pass
1	Pass	1NT	Pass
3NT	Pass	Pass	Pass

Here we are, ending our journey together, talking about whether to finesse or not. Let’s make our plan.

Solution to Hand 1:

Contract: 3NT

Well, we’re not going to be so quick as to play the Q without a little thought.

S	We have to take nine tricks.
T	We have one spade, one heart and three club tricks, a total of five.
O	There are three places where we might think about getting extra tricks. We might consider playing the Q to gain an extra trick. If West has the K, we gain a trick immediately. If East has the K, our J will be promoted to a winner. We can promote four winners in diamonds by driving out the A. We also might get an extra trick from the club suit if the missing clubs are divided 3–3. Since the diamonds will provide all the tricks we need, this is the suit we want to focus on.
P	Since our plan tells us that we don’t need an extra trick from the spade suit, we should win the A and go about our business of developing the diamond suit. What would have happened if we took the spade finesse? East would win and lead back a heart, driving out our A. The opponents would end up with five tricks: the K, three heart tricks and the A. Instead, we have to be quicker at promoting our diamonds while we have control. After we take the A and play a diamond, East can take the A and also the K but must then give us back the lead since we still have the J left. Timing is everything.

Hand 2 Dealer: East

N	E	S (Zia)	W
	Pass	1	Pass
2	Pass	3	Pass
4	Pass	Pass	Pass

Contracts in the spade suit always remind me of a lion – a king of the jungle. But what dangers lurk in the forest? I wonder.

Solution to Hand 2:

Contract: 4

S	We can afford to lose three tricks in our 4 contract.
T	We have one potential spade loser and three diamond losers, one too many.
O	It is tempting to take the first trick with the A and take the spade finesse, trying to get rid of our extra loser that way. We should examine all the possibilities, however, before deciding on our plan. The dummy has an extra heart winner and we could use it to discard one of our diamond losers. This is a better alternative than taking the spade finesse right away. If it does not work – perhaps one of the opponents will trump our heart winner – we can fall back on the spade finesse later.
P	One more thought before we play to the first trick. We will need the A as an entry to the dummy, so we should win the first trick with the K in our hand. Then we play the A and Q. Now it is time for the A so that we can get to the dummy to play the K and discard a diamond loser. When this works successfully, we can turn our attention to the spade suit. We no longer mind that the finesse loses. Lucky for us that West did not find a diamond opening lead!

Hand 3 Dealer: West

N	E	S (Zia)	W
			Pass
Pass	Pass	2NT	Pass
6NT	Pass	Pass	Pass

It’s nice to finish off with a slam contract. We’ve got eleven sure tricks and it looks as if there are good chances for a twelfth trick but, before we decide what to do, let’s go through the steps of the plan.

Solution to Hand 3:

Contract: 6NT

S	We need to come up with twelve winners to make our slam.
T	We have two sure spade tricks, two sure heart tricks, two sure diamond tricks and five sure club tricks. That’s eleven tricks and we need only one more.
O	The obvious place for our extra trick appears to be in the heart suit. If East has the Q, a successful finesse will see us home. Before staking everything on the location of the Q, however, we want to look for other options. The dummy’s J gives us a second chance. If West has the Q, we can get a trick by leading towards the dummy’s J. Since there are two choices, we’d like to combine them if possible. Does it matter which we try first? Suppose we try the heart finesse first and it loses to West’s Q. Now, it is too late to try leading towards the dummy’s J. Even if West has the Q, he will win a trick with it and the defence will have two tricks, defeating the contract. Let’s try it the other way. If we lead toward the J first and it turns out that East has the Q, we can still fall back on our second chance of the heart finesse. That sounds like a better approach.
P	Having gone through our plan, we now know to win the first trick with the K in our hand and lead a diamond towards the dummy’s J. When West wins this trick with the Q, the dummy’s J has become our twelfth trick. Careful play has brought in our slam contract, along with the substantial scoring bonus for making it. A nice way to finish. Thank goodness we took time to make our plan before playing to the first trick.