Risk-free
By Paul Bowyer

There are some cheap and easy looking tricks on this hand.

Should you grab the low-hanging fruit?

You reach 4♠ as South after the common bidding sequence of 1♠ – 3♠ – 4♠. Dummy is about par for the course and you have to decide what to do after West leads an unreadable ♦6 at trick one.

Count-Plan-Execute. What tricks can you see?

Well, on the assumption that trumps are not 4-0 there are five Spades, one Heart and three Diamonds. An extra trick easily comes from ruffing a Heart on table (in the short trump hand) and that swells the total to ten.

Problems? Well, there is a Diamond blockage that has to be overcome. So that has to be catered for. Should we draw trumps, therefore, or should we go immediately for Heart ruffs?

Well, it would be greedy play to play for Heart ruffs immediately. If trumps break then we need one Heart ruff precisely and that will be available after drawing trumps. If trumps are 4-0 we’ll need a Plan B but Plan A is certainly to draw trumps and to take the ten easy tricks we have been dealt.

Having taken out three rounds of trumps we can unblock the pesky Diamonds, take the ♥A, ruff a Heart and cash the ♦A. Contract made.

What if we had taken a Heart ruff at trick two? Disaster, that’s what.  East would over-ruff the second Heart and West would ruff away the next Diamond. East-West would simply smirk as they added the ♣A K to the bag. Ugh.

Now it may be unlucky (very unlucky) to run into a 7-1 Heart split and a 6-1 Diamond split. However, drawing trumps acts as a marvellous prophylactic against the most spiteful adverse distribution. When you can count enough tricks for your contract – draw trumps!

How to Play:

There is a Chinese saying:
'An image is worth 1000 words!'

You may want to take the
Online Player Guided Tour

1 - Bidding: Click the 'Play' button in the middle of the page to display the bidding box.

When you are ready, click the 'Start Bidding' button.

When a bid is alerted, it is shown on a yellow background. You can then click that bid to display the related alert.

When there is a comment or a question about your own bid, you can read it on the bidding box comments pane, and then, click the 'Ok' button to continue bidding.

Click 'Close Bidding Box' to proceed to playing the hand.

2 - Playing: The lead is automatic if you are declarer, otherwise you'll see the 'It's your lead' warning in the center pane.

You will play your cards and dummy's as if you were at a live table.

2.1 -Touching cards are considered equivalent! e.g. if you have 876 and you play the 7 while Vu-Bridge expects you to play the 6, then the 7 will blink and the 6 will be played.

2.2 -Sometimes there will be a comment or question during the play.
You should read it and click the 'Click to continue' button at the top of the comment text.

If its a question, there will be a 'Show Answer' button to click at the bottom of the comment panel.

2.3 - When a comment bears a 'Finish flag' button, you can click it to reveal hidden hands and continue playing. We use this to explain technical coups like end-plays, squeezes etc.

2.4 - You can review the last trick by clicking on the last won or lost trick (back of card) at the bottom of the screen. The last trick will show during 3 seconds and then play will continue.

2.5 - You can click the 'Undo last trick' button at the left of the screen in order to redo one or several tricks and review the attached comments.
You can review the auction by clicking the 'Auction' tab in the same area.
3 - Moving the comment panel:

When the mouse hovers the dark green background of the bidding box or the comment panel, you'll see a crosshair cursor and you can drag and move it around the page.

The left and right arrows on the top left corner of the comment panel allows you to increase or reduce the width for better readability.

4 - When a hand is finished, you can click the 'Board List' at the top of the comment panel, and play other hands From the same Series.

To play other Series, visit the Vu-Bridge's home page and click the 'Bridge Hands' button.