Play of the Hand
Robert Todd
(612) Fundamentals of Trick Taking – Quick ...

Learning to take tricks is a key part of developing our card play skills. There are a large number of techniques for taking tricks, and it is important to be able to use these to help our side collect our winners. Let’s look at some of these fundamental techniques.

(612) Fundamentals of Trick Taking – Quick Tricks, Promotion, Ruffs
Play of the Hand
Robert Todd
(611) Playing to a Trick – Seat-Based Thinking ...

When it’s our turn to play a card to a trick, then a key thing to consider is which player we are at the table. Are we playing to the trick first, second, third, or last? When we play to a trick, it affects our strategy for how we use our cards. There are some guidelines for what to “second hand low, third hand high”. Let’s look at the pros and cons of playing to a trick in each of the positions and see why these are suggestions for us.

(611) Playing to a Trick – Seat-Based Thinking as Declarer
Play of the Hand
Robert Todd
(610) The Power of the Crossruff

When declaring in a suit contract, one of the most exciting ways to win tricks is to trump with our small trump. This is especially satisfying when we can trump the opponent’s honor cards – like their Aces and Kings!  If we do this ruffing in both our hand and in the dummy, then we can do some significant damage to the opponent’s potential winners.  Let’s see how we can use the technique to take as many tricks as possible.

(610) The Power of the Crossruff
Play of the Hand
Robert Todd
(609) The Entry Finesse

When we look at a card combination in a suit, we normally focus on how we can best play these cards to produce the most tricks in this suit.  But remember that our goal is to use all of our cards to produce the maximum number of tricks from them. That means that sometimes we play a particular suit in a less-than-optimal fashion (differently than if we were only playing that suit, or looking that suit up in a book), in order to allow ourselves to take the maximum number of overall tricks. One of reasons that we may play a suit differently than a textbook will tell us to do is to give us additional entries to one of the hands. One of the ways that we may try to produce additional entries is by taking an unnecessary or less than optimal finesse.  Let’s see how this can work to our advantage.   

(609) The Entry Finesse
Play of the Hand
Robert Todd
(608) My Favorite Card Combination

The more bridge we play, the more we run into situations in the play that frustrate us – where we feel that we always get things wrong. In compliment to that, we may find certain card combinations where we know we end up with good boards if they appear.  For many players this involves whether they lose a trick to the trump Queen or not!  There is a particular card combination that I find elegant – it has resulted in many good results for me over the years.  Let’s take a look at my favorite card combination and make sure we have it in our skill set.

(608) My Favorite Card Combination