Contract Bridge: Avoidance, Elimination and End Plays

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In this series, we are going to teach you how to lose tricks.  Huh?  What’s that you say, “I can lose tricks just fine on my own, thank you very much!”  Okay, let’s rephrase that teaser with:

The purpose of the upcoming lessons will illustrate methods where the declarer may win extra tricks by forfeiting a trick or tricks at the appropriate time and/or in the appropriate suit (may be void where prohibited, such as playing against your loved ones). 

Seriously though, in life and in Bridge sometimes we find it beneficial to offer up a pawn to win a game of chess, to let an opponent take one of our checkers so we can take two or more, to entice an opponent to reveal their assets so we can discover their weaknesses.  And so it goes in Bridge, sometimes we gain by using tactics such as:

– Temporarily ducking a winning trick

– Waiting for the right time to deliberately make one or either opponent win a trick

– Offering a losing play to a “non-dangerous” opponent

For instance, we certainly should not attempt a 50-50 chance on a finesse when we have a 100 percent guarantee of making a trick using another tactic.  Of course opponents are all too happy to see us take try unsuccessful “practice finesse” – it’s just that partner prefers we discover the winning line of play.

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