A 1NT opening is one of the best in all of bridge. There are classic hands that open we open 1NT, but there are also some slightly off-shape hands that are best to open 1NT. Here we look at those.
Play of the Hand
When we declare a hand in a suit contact, we usually look at our number of losers. We start by counting our certain losers (the ones we know we cannot avoid), then estimate our potential losers, and make a plan for trying to get rid of as many of our potential losers as possible. We start by approximating our losers from the long trump side (which is frequently declarer’s hand). When we have potential losers in a side suit, one of the ways that we can get rid of these losers is by trumping them with the short side’s trump. Ruffing losers in the short side is a useful declarer play technique and one we need to make sure to make use whenever possible.
Play of the Hand
A long suit is a powerful asset, especially if it is a long, strong suit. When we declare, this type of suit can be established into winners in a variety of ways. Let’s look at some techniques for developing long suits, and then we should look at what we can do with the suit to help us take more tricks. Long suits are on many of the hands that we hold, so learning to make the best use of them is a key skill.
Play of the Hand
When we declare in a suit contract, then there is a trump suit, and hopefully, we have more of these cards than the opponents (if not, please reconsider your bidding). That means, when we gain the lead, we have the option of attempting to remove all of the opponent’s trump – draw trump. Let’s look at our options and considerations for how and when to do this.
Play of the Hand
When we declare a hand, especially in a Notrump contract, there are two common assets that help us produce tricks. The first are our honor cards, which we quantify using High Card Points. We normally use these honor cards as quick tricks or to capture the opponent’s honors. The other way we usually take tricks is with long suits. Long suits (especially strong ones) can be used to take tricks with their little cards by running the opponents out of cards in that suit. When we declare a hand, we may have a long suit in our hand or in the dummy. We can use either of these to establish additional tricks – often called length tricks. Let’s look at how we try to set up these additional winners.
