Contract Bridge

In general, a partnership generally does best to select the suit that contains the greatest number of cards in the two combined hands as the trump suit. It follows that they would normally choose an eight- card fit rather than a seven- card fit, or a nine- card fit rather than an eight- card fit, or 10 over nine, and so on.

However, the rule has its exceptions. There are times when an eight- card suit, divided 4- 4, serves as a better trump suit than a nine- card suit. This deal from the 1966 U.S Team Trials provides a case in point.

If the hand is played in spades or notrump, declarer makes 12 tricks, period. At one table, North- South got to seven spades, down one, and at six other tables, the final contract was either six spades or six notrump.

At only two tables was the excellent contract of seven diamonds reached. With diamonds as trump, the grand slam was foolproof. All South had to do was to ruff a club in dummy to produce a 13th trick. This extra trick was not available in any contract but diamonds.

The advantage of playing the 4- 4 fit rather than the

6- 3 fit is that declarer makes an extra trump trick. With diamonds as the trump suit, he scores five diamonds and six spades, but with spades as trump, he scores only four diamonds and six spades. The eight- card suit thus serves more effectively than the nine- card suit.

Note that North never rebid his spades, despite holding six of them, and that South never supported spades with the A- Q- 9. Both players realized that the more evenly divided diamond suit would produce an extra trick or two that could not be scored if spades were trump.