Odds and Ends

Scoring Laws Famous Names

Most common mistakes made by declarer 

I offer these mistakes after a lifetime of watching other people play.  They are roughly in order of frequency amongst beginners.  If you are in this category, may I suggest that you take one mistake a month, and attempt to eradicate it from your play. This will leave you two over for Xmas and Easter.

     1.  Taking all your winners quickly and then wondering where the rest are coming from. It has been said that the difference between a beginner and an expert playing a contract of three no-trumps is that the beginner takes eight tricks early while the expert takes nine tricks late. See this page.

     2.  Failure to draw opponent's trumps early enough. We have all heard of the bridge players walking the embankment at dead of night regretting....

     3.  Failure to use the 'short' trump hand to create extra tricks by ruffing before drawing trumps. See this page.

     4.  Failure to appreciate that trumping in the 'long' hand gives you no extra tricks and may lose you a tempo. See this page.

     5.  Hasty play to the first trick. This is when you formulate your plan. See this page.

On a heart lead against a three no-trump contract, you can very easily go wrong at trick one. Try it !

Against opponents who are likely to hold up their ace of clubs, you must have an entry to dummy outside the club suit. This can only be a heart, and so it is essential that your ace of hearts is played at trick one. Then, nine tricks roll home.

     6.  Handling a finesse incorrectly. See this page.

     7.  Playing a suit in the wrong order and cutting yourself out of the long hand. See this page.

     8.  Premature use of a crucial entry, usually in dummy, before another suit is established. See this page.

      9.  Drawing an opponent's remaining master trump when it takes two of yours. See this page.

     10.  Being overkeen to open up a new suit.  Whoever does this, two-thirds of the time they give away a trick.

     11.  Refusing a finesse if offered it by defenders, when failure to take it will result in a certain loser in this suit.

If South leads this suit, then provided that  (a) you are unafraid of giving a trick to the defenders at this point, and (b) you have no way of getting rid of this potential loser later in the play, you must finesse by playing the queen.

     12.  Not recognising the better of two chances ie a 3:2 split or a finesse. See this page.

     13.  Not recognising a danger hand which, at all costs, you must try and keep off lead. See this page.

     14.  Unwillingness to lose the lead. Giving defenders the lead is often an experienced player's most successful ploy as they frequently make a lead which gives him a trick.