Card combinations

Suit combinations, taught

Learn to play one suit, your cards and dummy's, for as many tricks as you can. Each lesson is a few screens: a little to read, then a board to play or a question to answer. Nothing is scored or timed. If you play a wrong card, we explain why and you try again.

A suit combination is your cards in one suit and dummy's, played on their own. The question is how to take as many tricks from that suit as the contract needs. Unlike most of bridge, it has a right answer that can be calculated exactly.

We suggest reading the lessons in order. The odds come first, and the techniques build on each other, but nothing is locked, so start wherever you like. The first three lessons are free. The course ends with an exam of forty-eight positions, one life each.

Already know the ideas? The daily combination is a single problem with one life, and the reference table has the best line for each combination.

  1. 1Why not maximise expected tricks

    4 steps

    The aim is the best chance of taking the tricks your contract needs. That isn't always the same as taking as many tricks as you can.

  2. 2How suits break

    5 steps

    How the missing cards divide, and why a 68% chance of a 3-2 break decides so many suit combinations.

  3. 3The finesse

    5 steps

    Leading towards a card that is not the highest one out, worked through on four different holdings.

  4. 4The double finesse

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    Two finesses through the same defender, each for a different card, and three quite different holdings that each succeed seventy-six per cent of the time.

  5. 5Dropping

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    When to play for a missing honour to fall rather than finessing for it, why an unsupported honour is no finesse at all, and what eight-ever-nine-never counts.

  6. 6Leading toward honours

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    A finesse is led towards the card you hope will win, never away from it, and that decides which of your two hands plays first.

  7. 7Chinese finesse or not

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    Leading an honour that a defender can cover. On one holding it gains nothing; add the ten and it is worth half the suit.

  8. 8Finessing the short hand

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    When to break the usual rule: two holdings best played by leading from the long hand, so a defender has to spend an honour under the short one.

  9. 9Pinning

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    Forcing a short honour out cheaply, and squashing a defender's middle card under a higher one so that a finesse against their partner becomes available.

  10. 10Safety play

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    Giving up a trick you do not need to remove the chance of losing one you do, including a holding that is certain for three and a coin flip for four.

  11. 11Managing entries

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    Two holdings whose answer changes once you can't reach dummy at will. In this lesson you have a limited number of entries.

  12. 12The intra-finesse

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    Finessing one defender for a card in order to create a finessing position against the other, and the winner worth cashing before you start.

  13. 13The same cards, a different target

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    Two holdings played twice each: certain for three tricks, forty-one per cent for four, and a different first card at each.

14The exam

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48 questions

Every exercise from the notes the course is built on, one life each. It isn't timed, and you can take it as often as you like.

Sit the exam

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