Plan Your Discards

Dealer:  East Vul: E-W	Charlie ♠Q53 ♥Q6 ♦J42 ♣QJ532
Eddie ♠8762 ♥AKJ854 ♦76 ♣4		Michael ♠JT9 ♥92 ♦T985 ♣AK98
	Irene ♠AK4 ♥T73 ♦AKQ3 ♣T76

South	West	North	East
Irene	Eddie	Charlie	Michael
			Pass
1NT	All Pass

Opening Lead: ♥ K

This hand came up in a lunchtime game. I want you to put yourself in Irene's shoes.

Dealer:  East Vul: E-W	Charlie ♠Q53 ♥Q6 ♦J42 ♣QJ532
Eddie ?		Michael ?
	Irene ♠AK4 ♥T73 ♦AKQ3 ♣T76

Eddie starts out by cashing his hearts from the top. When he plays the ♥J, east shows out. It's a good idea to count when this happens. Dummy started with 2 hearts, east started with 2, and Irene started with 3, so that means Eddie started with 6. It is clear that Eddie is going to run the hearts, meaning Irene is going to have to find a lot of discards.

What would you discard if you were Irene? What would be left in your hand (and dummy's hand) when Eddie finally runs out of hearts?

You are going to be left with 7 cards. You would like to keep cards that can win 7 tricks if Eddie doesn't switch to a club. But you also want to keep enough clubs to keep E/W from getting a bunch of club tricks if Eddie does lead a club.

Here is a possible last 7 cards she could have discarded down to:

Dealer:  East Vul: E-W	Charlie ♠Q5 ♥ ♦J4 ♣QJ5
Eddie ?		Michael ?
	Irene ♠AK4 ♥ ♦AKQ3 ♣

With this holding, if Eddie leads a spade or diamond, you'll take the last 7 tricks and make your contract. Even if Eddie leads a club, they won't be able to take more than 2 club tricks. As long as you play a low club if Eddie leads a high one, or play a high club if Eddie leads a low one, you'll have a club stopper.

Unfortunately, at the table, Irene was too afraid of clubs and she kept two clubs in her hand. This meant when Eddie led a spade, Irene was only able to take 5 tricks, and still had to lose two clubs.

Figuring all this out is easier if you plan you discards all at once (when you see what the split is), rather than deciding one trick at a time. So plan ahead, and remember that it is often good enough to keep stoppers in just one of your hands.