Playing the cards
Counting the hand
Counting the hand means tracking how many cards each opponent holds in a suit, so you can place the missing honours. The only arithmetic is adding up to thirteen, and the easiest way to start is with one suit.
What counting gets you
You hold eight cards in a suit missing the queen. Finesse, or play for the drop? Without a count, you're guessing.
With a count you can work it out. Say the suit is diamonds. If East is known to hold five hearts, three spades and two clubs, they have three diamonds and West has two, so the queen is more likely to be with East.
When a good player seems to guess right, they've often already worked out where the card was.
Start with one suit
Pick the suit that will decide the contract, usually trumps, or the suit you must develop. Count that one. When it's done, the opponents' remaining cards are thirteen minus what you know, and you often learn the other suits along the way.
- Count how many of your chosen suit are missing.
- Watch who follows and who doesn't.
- When one opponent shows out, you know both hands' length in that suit exactly.
Where the information comes from
The auction
Start with the auction. An opponent who preempted has seven of that suit and six elsewhere. A 1NT opener is balanced, so no suit is shorter than a doubleton.
A pass tells you something too. A player who never bid over a one-level opening is unlikely to hold a six-card suit and 12 points.
The opening lead
A fourth-highest lead places the suit almost exactly. Apply the rule of 11. A lead from a sequence says where the honours are. A singleton lead says a great deal about the whole hand.
Every card after that
Defenders signal count to each other and you get to read it. High-low is an even number (see defensive signals), and they can't switch it off without confusing partner.
A discard is the strongest evidence of all: it means that player has run out, and it fixes their length in the suit they discarded from too.
A worked hand
12 points, four spades.
18 points. Playing 4♠, missing the spade ten and three others.
West opened 2♥, a weak two. That tells you West has six hearts, so East has two.
Play three rounds of clubs and West discards a heart on the third. West is now known to hold six hearts and two clubs, and once you've played diamonds the count is complete. Whatever is left in West's hand is spades, so play the spades the way the count tells you.
Defenders count too, and have it easier
A defender sees dummy from trick two and can count declarer's hand the same way. In some ways it's easier: declarer told you about their shape during the auction, and dummy is face up all hand.
The payoff is knowing when to take an ace, when a suit is dead, and when declarer has run out of trumps. Many defensive tricks that go missing were available to a defender keeping count.
How to build the habit
- Count trumps on every hand. Only trumps, until it's automatic.
- Say the shape out loud in your head when an opponent shows out: "West began with six hearts".
- Replay the hands you got wrong with all four hands up, and find the trick where the count was already available.
- Add the second suit only once the first stops taking effort.
Expect it to take a few hundred hands before it's automatic.