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Setting up Long Suits
When have a long suit you always want to make the small cards into winners, this
is called 'establishing' or 'setting up' your suit. This setting up of your suit is most often achieved by playing
the long suit until you lose a trick to the opponents high card, a trick you must lose in order for the suit to
become established
The Issue
When you are working with your long suits you are always trying to make the small cards into winners.In order to do this you must have enough side suit entries to the hand with the suit which you are trying to establish.
You should always count your own holding and the oppositions holding in the suit you wish to develop as the cards are played so that you know when the small cards have become good (this is called being established).
Keep leading your long suit and count how many cards there are still outstanding. Try to remember the probable distribution statistics from the previous Lesson (306) The opposition will probably keep leading different suits when its their chance to play so you must be able to win in these side suits enough times to go back to your long suit and keep drawing out all of your opponents holdings.
Your best chance of developing extra tricks is usually in your longer suits and your suits with uninterupted sequences.
The contract is 3NT. Your partner lays down this hand and you see that together have only 6 winning tricks (without losing the lead) and if East leads clubs you will lose all 5 club tricks. You need to develop another three winning tricks in order to make your contract. How can you do this?
North
West
East
South
The Process
You and dummy combined hold seven cards in both the heart and diamond suits. Your chances of creating extra trick is greater in these longer suits as you can lead these suits on more occasions. With this in mind we will examine our two seven card suits.The Spades
You have the top 5 spades you will win 4 spade tricksThe Hearts
In hearts you have two certain tricks but you would like the 10 of hearts to become a winner as well, giving you 3 heart tricks from your current holding. For this to happen we need both the outstanding Queen and Jack of hearts to be in East's hand (dreams are free!) so that after we lead a low heart from dummy and if East does not play the Queen or Jack declarer then plays the 10 of hearts.If East plays either the Jack or the Queen then declarer will cover with his King of hearts, and if East plays high the second time declarer plays the 2 of hearts. In this instance with the hearts being split 3-3 between East and West if you then just play the Ace and King of Hearts, the 2 of hearts becomes a winner as well (so 4 winning heart tricks) but distribution like this only occurs 30% of the time when there are 6 cards outstanding
Diamonds
In diamonds the Ace and Queen are outstanding - you would like to have the king jack and 10 of diamonds as winners.If there are two outstanding honors in a suit 60% of the time they are split, if this is the case you are hoping that west has the queen so that you can cover with your King. If west plays low you will play the 9 of diamonds from dummy, however if west plays the queen you will cover with the king and east has to use the Ace to win a diamond trick.The Clubs
When East leads any club West will win with either the AC or the 9C (depending on the club you play) and proceed to win all the rest of the clubs.Instant Progress Quiz - Check all correct answers
Extra for Experts
A different game on the same subject as this lesson, with questions for community discussion in the comments area below.
PLAY