Count, you Sucker

A failure to count -- and we're talking about counting to 10 or 12 or 13 for the most part -- is probably the most common reason for booting away contracts. And one reason for that is doubtless that there are a number of different counts to take. We'll start with the most common and necessary, a count of winners or a count of losers from the closed hand or losers from dummy. From there we'll commonly want to count the cards in one suit or maybe two, how many one defender must have when the other shows out, or with a tad less certainty, how many a defender is likely to have from the bidding, or from what his opening lead might signify. When contemplating a crossruff you'd want to count your top side-suit winners and then subtracting from the level of your contract, how many trump winners you need. You might count the hcp's one defender or the other has played and weigh that number against the bidding. Oh, you might think of others.

Here is a type of counting I had forgotten about in my first draft, which goes something like this: the opponents climb to 3 no in the face of our not very spirited bidding. Still, even if my partner and I don't have the horses to grab the contract here, did we not collectively promise something in the neighborhood of 17 or 18 hcp's? Maybe my partner opened the bidding and I've got 6 or 7 . . . or he overcalled, and I've got 10. Surely I can count on him for 7 hcp's for the overcall, I would think. I won't know where my tricks are coming from, but I'll find that when we have 17 or 18 hcp's, the opponents have a tough time going for 9 tricks.

In any event, it's a very common reason for a declarer to boot away a contract. Indeed, I have a separate category devoted to such malfeasance and could have doubled the number there with ease. In any event, I'll give just a few rather elementary cases in illustration of this failing.

For illustrations, click here