Previous Tip – Play in a 4-4 fit

By – Cal McLeod

I played against a couple of our up and coming players recently who played in a 5-3 spade fit rather than a 4-4 heart fit that they also knew about. On this hand it made no difference but it is more often better to play in the 4-4 fit. Here are some of the reasons why and they are based on both majors splitting 3-2 which occurs more often than not:

• It is harder for the defence to short-ruff you.
• If you need to make 1 ruff, you can usually pull trump first and not have to worry about an over ruff.
• If your 5 card suit is a side suit it allows you to pitch losers and then ruff a loser with that extra trump in your hand or dummy.

Here is a hand that makes 6♥ but not 6♠ when the suits split as expected.

Declarer in 6♥ wins the opening lead of a diamond, for example. They then pull trump in three rounds. Next, they play 5 rounds of spades, pitching 2 diamonds from the dummy. They can now ruff a diamond and concede 1 diamond trick, making. In 6♠, you have no way of pitching diamonds and have to hope for some unusual defence holding which allows you to make it.

If you are interested, here are all the previous Tips of the Week