Counting the hand – Hilo Bridge Club

Tag Archives: Counting the hand

Your plan for the defense?

Posted on February 11, 2022 by Harry • 0 comment

You are East on defense after the auction shown below. Here is what you see when partner leads the eight of hearts (partnership agreement is to lead low from 3 or more cards when your partner has the suit). Declarer plays the ace from dummy, three by you, and deuce by declarer.

At trick two declarer leads the three of spades from dummy. Are you counting? What’s your plan for the defense?

Scroll down for my recommended plan.

There are two key clues to this puzzle:

Partner started with doubleton or singleton heart, meaning opponents hold the top three heart honors (declarer has the queen). If partner has doubleton heart, opponents’ hearts are 3-3. If partner has singleton heart, declarer has four hearts to the queen.
Opponents should hold at least 24 points, meaning partner holds at most 4 points.

Rise with the ace of spades at trick two and lead a heart. If partner ruffs, you will set the contract: ace of spades, heart ruff, top two diamonds.

If partner cannot ruff, opponents were always going to get the top three hearts. So, you have lost nothing. You may be able to find a fourth trick in the minor suits since partner has a little smattering of HCP. Make declarer do all the work to bring contract home.

Category: Exercises: Defensive Play | Tags: Counting the hand, Remember the bidding, Think before you play to trick one, Visualizing the Opponents' Hands

A Counting Puzzle for the Defense

Posted on February 7, 2022 by Harry • 0 comment

This is your hand:

You are West defending South’s contract of four spades after the following auction:

Your good opening lead is the queen of clubs, and here is what you see:

As usual, you will must think about where your tricks are coming from. See if you can uncover where partner may have some help. Follow the play until trick 7, and you will have enough information to solve the puzzle.

Scroll below for my solution:

Clues: Did you notice that partner gave you high-low during 1st two rounds of spades? That indicates interest in obtaining a ruff. Also, did you notice that declarer showed up with second diamond (the 3 of diamonds) at trick 7? How many remaining diamonds does that leave for partner?

Solution: Play low at trick 7, partner will ruff dummy’s honor. Declarer will not be able to establish diamond winners in dummy. Defense will come to four tricks: one club, two diamonds, and one ruff.

BTW, have you seen this hand before from another perspective?

Category: Exercises: Defensive Play | Tags: Counting the hand, Defensive carding, opening leads, Visualizing the Opponents' Hands

Plan your rebid

Posted on January 3, 2022 by Harry • 0 comment

When opening the bidding make sure you plan your reibid. Here is an example:

You are in 1st seat (both sides vulnerable) holding this hand:

You have an easy minimum opening bid of one diamond with your 13 HCP. Now anticipate a response from partner might make your rebid difficult. A one heart response would make it easy for you to raise to two hearts. A response of two clubs would make it easy for you to raise to three clubs. And a one spade response would make it easy for you to rebid one no trump.

Difficulty arises if partner’s response is one no trump. You hate to pass 1NT knowing that opponents have many spades plus a troublesome number of HCP. You hate to rebid diamonds with that crummy 5-card suit. And you are way too weak to reverse to two hearts.

But you have a couple of inferences available to help you decide: First, what is the minimum number of spades held by opponents?. Second, what is the minimum number minor suit cards held by partner? Decide on your rebid once you answer those questions.

See my decision below:

Inference number 1: opponents hold at least nine spades. Partner has at most three spades and I hold one.

Inference number 2: Partner did respond one heart so has at most three hearts. Ergo partner must hold at least seven cards in the minors.

My rebid is two clubs. That’s your best chance for a plus score.Partner did not raise diamonds, so you should have at least a seven card club fit. You will be able to hold off an attack in spades because of your shortness. Partner may take the suit preference for diamonds which would be even better.

BTW, you may have seen this hand before. Do you know where?

Category: Exercises: It's Your Call | Tags: Counting the hand, Plan your rebid, Visualizing the Opponents' Hands

Using clues from the bidding to guide your play

Posted on May 17, 2021 by Harry • 0 comment

You are South declaring three diamonds after West makes a preemptive jump to two spades over your opening bid. West leads the three of spades. Here is what you see with a summary of the auction:

Trick 1: You win the king of spades, East playing the jack.

Trick 2: Then you cash the ace of clubs, both following.

Trick 3: You then lead the eight of clubs, ruffing low in dummy.

Trick 4: Next comes the three of hearts from dummy and you put in the eight, losing to West’s jack.

At trick 5 West shifts to the four of spades. What spade do you play from hand? Scroll down for the answer.

Solution: Play the nine of spades, knowing it will get ruffed. West started with six spades for the preemtive overcall. You and dummy started with a combined total of six spades. East’s jack at trick one had to be a singleton. Don’t let your ace of spades get ruffed!

Category: Exercises: Declarer Play | Tags: Counting Losers in a suit contract, Counting the hand, Preempts, Remember the bidding, Visualizing the Opponents' Hands

Best sentence I read today

Posted on March 6, 2021 by Harry • 0 comment

It’s from Chip Dombrowski writing in the latest edition of the ACBL District 20 newsletter Trumpet. Concluding from West’s takeout double that East cannot have any of the missing honors, Chip puts in the queen of hearts from dummy. When East wins the trick with the heart king Chip comments:

It is one of my great pet peeves when people turn up with cards they are known not to have.

We have all experienced that peeve. It seems to occur at least twice every session on BBO.

Category: Exercises: Declarer Play | Tags: Counting the hand, Takeout Double, Visualizing the Opponents' Hands

How Will the Missing Cards in a Suit Break?

Posted on February 27, 2021 by Harry • 0 comment

Karen Walker has posted a useful table of probabilities here.

I suggest you become familiar with it. For example, you often come up with a problem such as how five missing will spades split between East and West. Answer: spades will break 3-2 68 percent of the time, 4-1 28 percent of the time, and 5-0 4 percent of the time.

Category: Exercises: Declarer Play | Tags: Bridge odds, Counting the hand, Visualizing the Opponents' Hands

An Instructive Example of Visualizing the Unseen Hands

Posted on February 18, 2021 by Harry • 1 comment

What’s known as “counting the hand” in bridge might better be called visualization. Experts don’t actually count. They visualize possible ways each suit originally broke in the unseen hands, and they confirm or adjust that vision as more is learned from the play. For example, say you are declarer in a spade contract with silent opponents. You hold eight spades between you and dummy. You tentatively visualize opponents’ original spade holding as breaking either 3-2 or 2-3 (a 68 percent chance). But you realize that the less friendly breaks (4-1 or 1-4 or 5-0 or 0-5) are also possible (32 percent chance).

You start to draw trumps and find that right hand opponent shows out on the second round. Don’t grimace about the 4-1 break. All the other pairs sitting your way are getting the same unfriendly break. Focus instead on adjusting your vision of the unseen hands: You now know that left hand opponent started with four spades, and you know precisely which spades those are. Also, you recall that right hand opponent was silent during the auction even though she held a singleton spade. Adjust your plan of play based on your new, more accurate vision.

To give you a little visualization exercise “here is a rather extreme, but instructive, example” from Alfred Sheinwold’s Five Weeks to Winning Bridge*:

Opening lead is the 10 of diamonds. You have 12 sure tricks. The only possible worry is that clubs don’t break 3-2, and you lose a trick to the jack. You don’t have much of a vision of unseen hands to start with, other than they each contain 13 crummy cards. How are you going to go about visualizing the club suit to eliminate that one little worry?

To get a firm grip on opponents’ original holdings, take your tricks in the other three suits before you tackle clubs:

You see West discard diamonds on the second and third spade, so now you know spades were split 1-6 between West and East.
You play three rounds of hearts and both follow, so hearts were split either 4-3 or 3-4 between West and East.
You see East discard a spade on the third round of diamonds, so diamonds were split 5-2 between West and East.
Now you know that West started with one spade, 3 or 4 hearts, five diamonds, and East started with six spades, 4 or 3 hearts. two diamonds. Therefore East has at most two clubs. You play the king and queen of clubs, knowing that ace and 10 in dummy will take the last two trick.

* https://www.amazon.com/Weeks-Winning-Bridge-Alfred-Sheinwold/dp/4871876098

Category: Exercises: Declarer Play | Tags: Counting the hand, Visualizing the Opponents' Hands

Visualizing the Unseen Hands in Practice

Posted on February 10, 2021 by Harry • 1 comment

Solving the Puzzle of Shapes of Unseen Hands

Clues from bidding and play are usually available for you to deduce the original shape of unseen hands. Once you can visualize those shapes, your path to taking tricks becomes much clearer. The issue for most of us is time: How are we going to do it in the heat of battle while the director’s clock is ticking?.

The answer is practice! Bridge Winners has developed a nice game to practice deducing the opponents’ original suit holding when one player shows out: http://bridgewinners.com/pages/counting-game/. Also, Bridge Winners has a nice discussion forum among well-known experts on how best to go about practicing: https://bridgewinners.com/article/view/counting-3/ How you do it is up to you, but I recommend you get started now.

I try to tentatively estimate shapes early from the opening lead and bidding. Usually, though, I must wait until one opponent shows out of a suit to reach a firm conclusion. When an opponent shows out, it becomes easy with practice to make a mental note of how many cards in that suit each opponent originally held.

Another source for practice: Larry Cohen’s guidance on counting and visualization: https://www.larryco.com/bridge-articles/counting. (BTW, I recommend you subscribe to his newsletter. It is a great resource for learning.)

Category: Exercises: Declarer Play, Exercises: Defensive Play | Tags: Counting the hand, Remember the bidding, Visualizing the Opponents' Hands

Rectifying the Count

Posted on February 8, 2021 by Harry • 0 comment

What’s usually referred to as “counting the hand” might better be termed visualizing the unseen hands. Experts don’t count. They rectify hand patterns from clues during bidding and play. Once they have done that, they have “gotten a count on the hand” or “rectified the count”, meaning they have deduced shapes of unseen hands.

Here is a nice declarer play exercise in visualizing hand patterns by Eddie Kantar*.

Follow the first eight tricks:

West cashes the ace of hearts, East playing the nine
West cashes the king of hearts, East playing the five
West play the nine of clubs, East playing low, you win the queen
You cash the king of spades, West discarding a heart
You cash the ace of spades, another heart from West
You cash the queen of spades, another heart from West
You go to the king of clubs, West following low
You cash the ace of clubs, West discarding a heart while you discard a low diamond

Tell me the hand pattern West started with? How many diamonds did East start with? How are you going to play the diamonds?

Were you able to “rectify the count” after trick eight?

*https://www.amazon.com/Test-Your-Bridge-Play-2/dp/1554947758

Scroll down for the answer if you need help:

At trick 3 you know that West started with 7 hearts, East with 2 hearts.

At trick 4 you discover that West started with zero spades, East with 4 spades.

At trick 8 you discover that West started with 2 clubs, East with 6 clubs.

Now you can rectify the count: West started with zero spades, 7 hearts, ?? diamonds, and 2 clubs. How many diamonds did West start with? How many diamonds did East start with? Hint: All four hands contain a total of 13 diamonds.

Now you know how to play the diamonds.

Category: Exercises: Declarer Play | Tags: Counting the hand, Remember the bidding, Visualizing the Opponents' Hands

Recommendations to help you think like a bridge player

Posted on February 3, 2021 by Harry • 0 comment

When it comes to solving the mystery of visualizing unseen hands, World Champion Mike Lawrence’s books and software provide the best guidance I have encountered. Here is Mike’s website: http://michaelslawrence.com/

Here is a fine example one of his books:

http://michaelslawrence.com/product/how-to-read-your-opponents-cards/

I benefited immensely from this software back in the late 90s: http://michaelslawrence.com/product/counting-at-bridge-2-cd-for-pc-only/

Mike gives us daily puzzles to help improve our game. Go to his BridgeClues site: https://www.bridgeclues2.com/ to enjoy and learn.

Category: Exercises: Declarer Play, Exercises: Defensive Play | Tags: Counting the hand, Remember the bidding, Think before you play to trick one, Visualizing the Opponents' Hands

Think like a bridge player

Posted on February 3, 2021 by Harry • 0 comment

What would Mike Lawrence do?

You are South on lead against 2NT. What clues does the auction give you?

Here is what Mike Lawrence might be thinking:

It looks like East has two heart stoppers and fewer than four spades. His shape is probably something like 3-4-3-3.
After my rebid of two hearts, West is still inviting game. He probably has about 17 HCP with shortness in hearts.
East has nothing extra, probably no more than six HCP.
Leading a heart does not look like a good idea. How best for me to go passive with this holding?
It looks like the opponents have a maximum of 7 spades between them – four with West and 3 with East. Partner should have at least five spades. The unusual lead of a singleton spade should not hurt the defense.
I lead the six of spades.

Category: Exercises: Defensive Play | Tags: Bidding Exercise, Counting the hand, opening leads, Passive Leads, Remember the bidding, Visualizing the Opponents' Hands

Think before you play to trick one

Posted on January 24, 2021 by Harry • 0 comment

This is a recent hand on BBO where I let my instincts takeover. I made the common mistake of failing to think at trick one, and I went down in a cold contract. Opening lead is the five of hearts. What do you think I should have done?

Put yourself in my shoes and decide. Then scroll down to make sure you got it right.

I managed to go down because I overlooked the almost certain location of the king of hearts. I should win the ace of hearts at trick one, club to the ace, ruff a club, and lead the queen of hearts. If RHO ducks I pitch my last club and likely make 11 tricks. If RHO plays the king, I ruff high and lead a top trump, losing only one club and ace of diamonds.

Category: Exercises: Declarer Play | Tags: Counting Losers in a suit contract, Counting the hand, Remember the bidding, Think before you play to trick one, Visualizing the Opponents' Hands

Visualizing declarer’s hand

Posted on January 23, 2021 by Harry • 0 comment

Try this from Mike Lawrence’s article “Trick one quandry” on page 56 of the April 2020 issue of Bridge Bulletin*. You are East and must decide what to do at trick one:

Time to practice visualizing declarer’s hand. Try answering the following questions:

How many spades does declarer have?
How many losers does declarer have? Or, conversely, how many winners does your side have?
What was your partner’s opening bid?
With clues from your answers, what card do you play at trick one and what is your plan for the defense?

How did you do?

*Bridge Bulletin is a great source for learning. I recommend you join the ACBL if you have not already done so.

Category: Exercises: Defensive Play | Tags: Counting Losers in a suit contract, Counting the hand, Remember the bidding, Think before you play to trick one, Timing is everything

What Would Mike Lawrence Think at Trick One?

Posted on May 25, 2020 by Harry • 1 comment

Here is a good visualization exercise for you. I recently saw this hand played in a BBO tournament, and no declarers seemed to put on their Mike Lawrence thinking cap. See if you can do better:

I win the ace of diamonds, East playing the three. What do I make of the opening lead? Opponents started with seven diamonds: Hierarchy of honors K Q J 10 9 as well as the deuce and trey. From what holding would West lead a little diamond when North has made a 2/1 diamond response?

Give this some Mike Lawrence kine thought, and let me know in comments or by email what you conclude.

Category: Exercises: Declarer Play | Tags: Counting the hand, opening leads, Remember the bidding, Think before you play to trick one, Visualizing the Opponents' Hands

Eye Opening Declarer Play

Posted on March 27, 2020 by Harry • 0 comment

Yesterday I wrote about an eye opening slam auction by Robert Levin and Geoff Hampson. I enjoyed a two-fer when Levin’s play of the slam also opened my eyes! Here was the hand and the bidding with Levin sitting West.

A slam will bid and well played.

Category: Exercises: Declarer Play | Tags: Counting the hand, End Play, Probable Division of Opponents' Cards, Visualizing the Opponents' Hands

Overtricks?

Posted on March 6, 2020 by Harry • 0 comment

See below for update 3/7/2020

Update 3/7/2020: Notice that you and dummy hold the top three diamonds. If four missing trumps break no worse than 3-1 and six missing diamonds break no worse than 4-2 (an 81 percent chance), then you can take all 13 tricks. Cash the king of diamonds at trick two. Draw one round of trumps ending in dummy at trick three. Ruff a low diamond high in hand at trick four. If both opponents follow, the diamonds are set up. Draw trumps at tricks five and six ending in dummy. Now run your remaining four diamonds from the top at tricks seven through 10, pitching two losing spades and two losing clubs. Now your hand is good with two remaining trumps and a winning spade. 13 tricks taken. Nice work.

Category: Exercises: Declarer Play | Tags: Counting the hand, Setting up a long suit, Think before you play to trick one

Three Simple Counting Questions

Posted on February 25, 2020 by Harry • 0 comment

HiloHarry Comments:

Partner should have about seven HCP. You have 12, dummy has five, declarer has about 16. 40 minus (12+5+16) equals seven.
Declarer seems to have five hearts. Why else would partner part with an honor?
You can see that declarer started with exactly two clubs, since she opened the bidding 1NT. You started with four clubs, dummy has six clubs, partner showed up with one club. That leaves only two clubs for declarer. Based on your count, you play the ace of clubs to isolate dummy.

Category: Exercises: Defensive Play | Tags: Counting the hand

A Defensive Problem

Posted on February 24, 2020 by Harry • 0 comment

Here is your hand:

Your right hand opponent opens the bidding one heart in second seat. You pass, and left hand opponent responds one spade. Right hand opponents’s rebid is two clubs, and left hand opponent jumps to four hearts. Here is summary of the auction:

You lead the deuce of spades and see this dummy:

Dummy plays low, your partner plays the king, and declarer wins the ace.

Now declarer draws trumps ending in hand, your partner having shown up with four small hearts.

Declarer cashes the jack of spades and leads the 10 to dummy’s queen. Declarer cashes dummy’s remaining two spades. What do you discard on that last spade?

Hold onto those clubs for dear life! Remember the bidding. If you pitch a club, declarer is going to drop your queen for an overtrick.

Category: Exercises: Defensive Play | Tags: Counting the hand, Remember the bidding

A Difficult Opening Lead

Posted on December 30, 2019 by Harry • 0 comment

Here is an interesting defensive hand from a recent game. Put yourself in the East seat:

East

North opened the bidding two clubs. South responded two diamonds (waiting). North’s rebid was 2NT (22-23 HCP). Souith raised to 3NT. Finding the right defense was difficult. What would you lead from the East hand?

Time to count: You have 12 points, declarer has 22-23, dummy should have 3+, and partner will be lucky to have so much as one jack.

Knowing from the bidding that partner is probably broke and that opponents have shown no interest in the majors, East should consider a heart attack on opening lead. But which card? I recommend the king* of hearts. Partner will give you attitude when she follows suit. You lead the king, and this is what you see in dummy:

Dummy

When you see Dummy come down you realize that South got a bit too aggressive when she bid 3NT. It’s not a percentage contract, and there is hope for your side. You can now place Partner with two or three points. Partner plays the encouraging seven, and declarer follows with the six. Now what? Do you play the ace or lead the eight, hoping partner has the queen?

My take is that you should cash the ace. It’s more likely that declarer, rather than partner, holds the queen. Partner has no entries, and you may be able to drop the doubleton queen. If partner happens to hold the queen, nothing is lost.

*The recommended lead from A K J 9 is the ace, asking partner to play her highest card. That will let East know if the suit will run. But your heart holding isn’t good enough for that (8 rather than 9).

Category: Exercises: Defensive Play | Tags: Attitude, Counting the hand, opening leads, Remember the bidding