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Establishing a suit or Promotion 

Establishing the cards in a suit is a term that is used when you have a holding such as K Q J 10, a solid suit but missing the ace. If you drive out the ace by continually playing your high cards until it appears, then your smaller cards will have been promoted and we say the suit has been 'established'.

The same argument would apply with Q J 10 9, except that this time we must lose two tricks to establish the 10 and the 9 . Holding the J 10 9 8, the same principle applies except that to drive out the ace, king and queen to establish our 8 is a long road to travel and on most hands, there will be more productive lines of play.

The situation is pretty much the same if your high cards are split between dummy and declarer. Given the holding below, it is immaterial which side you lead from or which card you choose to lose. You will have two tricks in this suit.

The same argument holds with the one below. You must take two tricks.

If your holding is not quite so impregnable as these ie

you would like the opponents ace to catch only fresh air, so would probably lead towards the king, and then again towards the queen if it holds. If this works, it could yield three tricks, whilst offering one of your honours up might only yield two.

The following is a spectacular illustration of promotion.

If the lead of the jack is covered by the queen, king and ace, then the lowly '10' has been promoted to 'boss ' on round two of this suit, and the'9' and '8' have also been established.

It is worth saying that when you have established 'bosses' in this way, they fall into the same category as 'top tricks', requiring no work to establish them (A or A Ketc) and should only be played when your contract is secure. See this page.

This is a simple case of establishing your ninth trick in this way.

The contract is 3NT, and the lead is a diamond. You have eight tricks 'on top' (you can take them when you like). You are in no danger in diamonds since your '8', '9' and '10' together with your ace can take care of opponents high diamonds. You have two high hearts and can afford to lose one to establish the other. Lead a heart immediately and your nine tricks roll home. It may be worth pointing out a commonly-held misconception.  If you only play a small heart from both hands, then the person with the ace will almost certainly not play it.

This last example is on similar lines.

The contract is 3NT, and the lead is a small heart. How do you plan the play ?

 You have seven certain tricks, and the diamonds clearly offer the best chance of two more. Win the heart lead with the king (short hand), and lose a diamond. Win the likely heart continuation and lose another diamond. Each suit is under control and you now have ten tricks (three clubs, three diamonds, three hearts and one spade).

When you are ready, have a look at these practise hands which encompass concepts from all aspects of declarer play.