Safety moves in developing a side suit Larry Hammick larry@hammick.com 2000.06.15 Contents ;Introduction ;Safety discard to avoid the dangerous opponent ;Safety discard to avert an overruff ;Safety duck ;Control-conserving duck ;Introduction When declarer needs to develop a side suit by ruffing, he cannot usually pull all the trumps first: he usually needs them as entries to the side length. There is therefore some danger of an overruff. Declarer may also need to lose the lead before the side suit is ready to provide discards; the suit from which he hopes to discard may then be attacked. This article describes three simple but elegant manoeuvres by which declarer can sometimes reduce these hazards. ;Safety discard to avoid the dangerous opponent Declarer's "loser suit" (from he will want to discard losers) may be vulnerable to attack from one side but not the other. If the dangerous opponent's entry is in the "winner suit" (the suit to be developed), there may be a sort of scissors coup available to declarer. KT9 Axxxx Ax xxx AQJxxx Kxx J Kxx West leads DK against 4S. If declarer puts on the ace, he might later lose a heart to East and get a club through his gizzard. As he is safe from a lead by West, declarer should duck trick one, and later throw his heart loser -- not a club -- on DA. He then has a good chance of developing the fourth and fifth hearts in dummy, for club discards. Suppose dummy's hearts were stronger: AJxxx. Declarer should still duck trick one: splitting the hearts 3-2 is a better chance than the heart finesse. This safety discard has a loser-on-loser form, or rather a loser-on- semiloser form. (A semiloser is a card which only one opponent can beat.) KT9 KT9 Axxxx Axxxx AT Qx xxx xxx AQJxxx AQJxxx xxx Kxx J x AQx AQx At left, West leads DK against 4S. Declarer wins in dummy and returns DT, throwing a heart (unless East unexpectedly produces DQ). Then East can get in for one club lead, but not two. When East leads a club, declarer cannot afford to try the Q. At right, if West starts with DK and then DA, declarer discards a heart on the second trick. With no semiloser, declarer may enlist the versatile "bogus ducking finesse" instead. KT9 Axxx Axx xxx AQJxx Kxx K9 Kxx West leads a trump against 4S. Declarer needs a trick from CK or a third trick from hearts. A good starting move is to win the lead in dummy and lead a small diamond. If East plays low, declarer plays the 9, forcing the safe hand to win. Later a heart loser goes on DA and declarer can test hearts before trying a club to the K. (If the opening lead were DQ, declarer could just duck it, as in a previous example.) ;Safety discard to avert an overruff AQx AKxxx AK xxx KJxxxx xx x AJ9x Against 6S West leads, say, a diamond to the K. You need a long heart, so you assume hearts are not worse than 4-2. You toss a heart -- not a club -- on the second diamond and take the trump K. Now you take just the K of hearts and ruff a heart low. If there are no surprises by now, you can claim: trump to dummy, ruff a heart high, and a trump back, to cash HAx, discarding clubs. The point of discarding a heart was that you could then ruff the second and third rounds rather than the third and fourth. (You could not afford to ruff both high, for fear of trumps 3-1.) This type of safety discard, like the previous, may appear in a loser- on-loser form. ;Safety duck This move, like the previous, allows declarer to ruff an _earlier round_ of the side suit. KQx AKxxxx xx Kx Axxxx x AQx Axxx West leads a club against 6S. The diamond finesse plus one ruff in dummy would give you twelve tricks, assuming trumps 3-2. But a better chance is to use the hearts; if they are not worse than 4-2 you expect 5S+4H+1D+2C. So you win the lead in hand and test trumps with the ace and queen, both following. You now _duck_ a heart. If, say, a club is returned, you ruff a heart and return to the trump K to run HAKxx. The purpose of ducking the heart is to enable you to ruff the second round rather than the third. The question arises whether declarer needs to duck the side suit at once, or can afford to do so later. In principle he must duck at once. For suppose, in the above hand, declarer took one high heart, ruffed one, returned to dummy and ducked a heart. The opponent who won the third round could lead a fourth, and a ruff by his partner, even if overruffed, would destroy a winning heart. ;Control-conserving duck Although not widely known among average players, this gambit is fairly elementary. (We also mention it in the article on trump control at hammick.com.) It consists of conceding a trick in the side suit, rather than ruffing it at the cost of shortening one's trumps. Typically the trump suit and the side suit are both strong, but declarer needs a ruff in dummy as well as dummy's side length, and can't afford to shorten _both_ of his hands. ATx ATx AKQxx KQxxx xx Kx Axx Axx KQJx KQJx xx Ax AKxx Axxx Qxx Qxx 6S is a little marginal but better than 6H or 6NT because of the chance to score a ruff in the short trump hand. West leads a diamond. The plan is for five trump tricks (counting a diamond ruff in dummy) plus 4H+2D+1C. But if you ruff a diamond right away, pull trumps (finding them 4-2), and concede a heart, the opponents might cash a diamond. In both variations you should win trick one in hand and duck a heart immediately. The control-conserving duck is sometimes available with a powerful suit, such as six to the AKQ or AKJT, opposite a singleton or void. QJT xx Axx AKQTx AK98x xxx Kxxx 9 Against 4S West the defence begins with three rounds of hearts, both following, and you ruff in dummy. You can probably take the rest but can afford to lose one more. The safest play is a low club off the table, giving you ten almost certain tricks even if trumps are 5-0. A couple of defensive points come to mind in this connection. One is that when a defender forces dummy, declarer should take it as evidence of a bad trump break. (If a ruff makes dummy shorter than one of the defenders, an extra entry to dummy will generally be needed to use the side suit. Also, declarer may later need to shorten his own hand to ruff out the suit or to get to hand to pull trumps.) The second point is that a defender should be reluctant -- very reluctant -- to release a stopper in declarer's side suit, especially if trump control is uncertain. There are a number of reasons for that, but if, say, East ducks dummy's J in this position: AKJTxx xx Qxxx x declarer will not see five winners in the suit and may seek a trick somewhere else, or continue with A and K, not expecting a ruff on his left.