Strong Jump Shifts: Suit Quality, Self-Sustaining Suits, Losing Trick Count

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Greetings Bridge Friends,

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Marching forward with our lessons on Losing Trick Count/Cover Cards and Self-Sustaining Suits/Suit Quality, it’s time to delve into bidding where we have strong hands with unbalanced shape.  Sure, we all love picking up a hand with nearly half the points in the deck, yet it can be a bidding challenge when holding a shapely hand with most of the points in two suits.  So what’s a player to do?  Let’s consider how the strong jump shift can help the opener eloquently describe their hand and drive towards a game contract.  But first, we have a bit of sad news. While our recent three lessons Losing Trick Count and Cover Cards has served us well, we cannot always use LTC/CC hand evaluation criteria to immediately count our winners and losers.  Of course as we’ve previously seen, when you do hold a semi self-sustaining suit then by all means go right ahead and begin using LTC (but use caution when both are minor suits).

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Let’s take a moment for a brief review:

Highlights – Losing Trick Count and Cover Cards

–         Prerequisite: 8+ card trump fit or self-sustaining suit
–         Ace-King-Queen are not losers in 3+ card suits (except Q x x in a side suit)
–         Generally, fourth card and beyond are not losers
–         LTC – CC equals losers, as 6 LTC – 3 CC = 3 losers (major suit game)
–         Extras: 5+4 trump, working Queens and Jacks, shortness

Trump Fit or Self-Sustaining Suit

1. LTC is normally a 5-3 or longer major suit fit
2. Occasionally one player has a long, strong suit
3. We need an independent method to determine the suit quality and LTC when one player has a long, strong suit
4. When evaluating Suit Quality, we generally assume partner may hold a singleton to ascertain the losers (LTC) in a long suit
5. Adjust the above when partner bids Notrump, indicating 2+ card support

Self-Sustaining Suit and Suit Quality

1. Limited to 1 loser when partner holds a singleton
2. Reserved for situations when a player holds a long, strong suit
3. Suit Quality equals the number of useful honors plus the suit length
4. Self-Sustaining Suit usually equals a Suit Quality of 10 or more, lose 0-1 tricks
5. Semi Self-Sustaining Suit equals a Suit Quality of 9, lose 1-2 tricks

Self-Sustaining Suits – Examples where SQ = 10

A K Q x x x x  = 3+ honors + 7 length = 10+
A Q x x x x x x = 2 honors = 8 length = 10
A K Q J x = 4+ honors + 5 length = 9+
K Q J 10 x x = 4 honors (without Ace) + 6 length = 10
Q J 10 9 x x x = 3 honors + 7 length = 10ish (discount 1 missing Ace and King)
J 10 9 8 x x x x = No! Inadequate with primary honors and Queen

Semi Self-Sustaining Suits – Examples where SQ = 9

A Q x x x x x = 2 honors + 7 length = 9
K Q J x x x = 3 honors + 6 length = 9
Q J 10 9 x x = 3 honors + 6 length = 9ish (body card 9 is helpful)
A K Q x x x = 3+ honors + 6 length = 9+ (count extra for top 3 honors in long suit)

Please refer to our Lessons 76 – 78 for more on LTC and Cover Card hand evaluation.

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