Use the Rule of Seven
when holding up in no-trumps
by Bernard Magee
When you are short of stops in a particular suit, you should try to break the opponents' communications in order to stop them running their suit. This is especially important if they have a five-card suit, for then they will have four tricks to make, unless you are careful.
When you are worried about an opponent's five-card suit in which you have just the ace as a stop, then you can use the Rule of Seven to tell you when to play your ace.
THE RULE OF SEVEN
Add the number of cards in the suit in your hand and dummy's, and take away the total from seven - the answer tells you for how many rounds you should hold up.
So with this spade suit:
If your left-hand opponent led the  K, the Rule of Seven would work in this way:
You have five cards between your two holdings, therefore you should hold up for (7-5) = two rounds.
Hence you duck the K and then duck the Q, winning the third round.
The rule can also work if you have the king and the defence take the ace on the first round:
West leads the  4 to East's ace and he returns the 10.
Using the rule, you should hold up for one round (7-6). The first round has gone, so you should win trick two with your king.
Let us see how the rule works in action:
7 6 5
K 2
 A 5
 K Q J 7 6 3 |
 |
A 4 2
A 3
J 10 8 6 3
10 9 2 |
West
1
Pass |
North
1
2
3NT |
East
Pass
Pass
All Pass
|
South
1
2NT |
West leads the K.
You have stretched a little and you are going to need a little luck to prevent West making his spade suit: if West has the A there will be nothing you can do. However, if East has the A, then you can prevail by breaking communications in the spade suit, so that when East wins the A he will not be able to play a spade back.
Use the Rule of Seven: you have six cards, therefore you should hold up for just one round.
| |
7 6 5
K 2
A 5
K Q J 7 6 3 |
|
K Q J 10 9
Q J 9 4
7 4 2
4 |
|
8 3
10 8 7 6 5
K Q 9
A 8 5 |
| |
A 4 2
A 3
J 10 8 6 3
10 9 2 |
|
You win the second round of spades and knock out the A - the rule works! East wins his ace, but cannot return a spade and you can therefore collect all your club tricks to make 3NT.
Why not hold up twice just in case?
A lazy declarer might indeed hold up twice, but he would be defeated by a more awake defender. After collecting two spades, West should give up on his spade suit and look elsewhere. He will guess that South has the A otherwise he would surely not have held up so long; so he will try a diamond switch. With two spade tricks in the bank, the defence now establish two diamond tricks to go with their
A.
The Rule of Seven is relatively straightforward; trust it and contracts like this will become easy!
From Bernard Magee's Tips for Better Bridge - £14 from www.mrbridge.co.uk/mrbridge-shop/
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by Dave Huggett
|
A J 6 5
K Q 5 3
J 7
K 8 6 |
West
Pass
Pass |
North
2
3NT |
East
Pass
Pass
|
South
1NT
2
? |
You open 1NT to show your balanced 12-14 point hand. Partner bids 2, STAYMAN, asking if you have a four-card major. You rebid 2, which shows four hearts, and partner bids 3NT.
What is going on here? Are you supposed to do anything more?
Solution next week.
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by Julian Pottage
West
Pass
All Pass |
North
1
|
East
1
Pass
|
South
1
3NT |
- West leads the five of spades. How do you play to the second trick?
- West leads the five of hearts. How do you play to the second trick?
In each case, you have five tricks on top and will need to set up four more in the minors.
| |
9 8 6 3
K
K J 10 9 8 4
8 2 |
|
Q 10 7 5
Q 10 7 5
A 6 2
J 9 |
|
J 4
J 8 4 3 2
7 5 3
K 10 6 |
| |
A K 2
A 9 6
Q
A Q 7 5 4 3 |
|
| Contract 3NT. Opening lead: 5/5. |
- You must play to the first trick before you can play to the second. You should win the first spade because you do not want to give East the chance to switch to a heart and knock out dummy's entry.
At the second trick, you should lead the queen of diamonds and, unless West plays the ace, overtake it with the king. You can then keep playing diamonds from the top to drive out the ace. Even in the worst case of a 6-0 diamond break, you will make at least nine tricks. An overtrick or two is more likely.
- After the more hostile heart lead, you need to give up on the diamonds. Instead, you must use dummy's one entry to finesse the queen of clubs. So long as the clubs break 3-2 and East holds the king, you will make nine tricks by way of two tricks in each major and five in clubs.
SIMPLE TIP. If dummy has no entry, there is no point in setting up its long suit.
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Having your cake and eating it
by Sally Brock
Question
I came in for a lot of criticism as North on the following deal. What do you think?
| |
9
Q 10 9 6 5 4 3
A 5 4 3
2 |
|
7
A K J 8 2
K 6
Q J 7 4 3 |
|
A J 10 8 6 5
Void
J 10 7 2
A 8 5 |
| |
K Q 4 3 2
7
Q 9 8
K 10 9 6 |
|
West
1
2 |
North
Dbl
2 |
East
1
3 |
South
Dbl
All Pass |
West played in 3 making and, on seeing the traveller, became quite upset that previous East/Wests had bid and made 3NT. 'Any tournament director would have fined you 1000 points for that sort of bidding.' he said. I accept that my double shows shortage in hearts, but I do feel I had no other reasonable call to make and I rectified this on the second round of bidding. I felt that I had a duty to tell partner that between academic and distributional points I did have an opening hand.
Answer
When you decide to adopt any convention, you have to accept that you can no longer use that bid in its natural sense. A double of a one-level opening bid is not either (a) for a take-out, or (b) for penalties: it is for take-out and, if you follow up by bidding the opponent's suit, you have not shown a hand that wanted to make a penalty double of 1; you have shown an extremely strong hand that had a take-out double. The correct action when you hold the suit opened on your right is to pass. On the next round you may get the chance to bid that suit naturally, or even to double which can show the suit opened. You said that 'between academic and distributional points I did have an opening hand'. The expression 'opening hand' usually refers to a one opener; the hand you had would be better expressed by opening 3.
If you sat me down at the table as South, and North had bid like you did for the first two rounds, I would have assumed that my opponents were psyching and that we were cold for a slam. In fact, I do not understand why your partner did not double 3.
Had you passed on the first round, East would have bid 1, your partner would have passed and West would have bid 2. Now, if you felt like it, you could bid 2, which would be a natural call.
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