ACBL16 – Declarer: ARCH Checklist Ward Trumbull
Feb 5, 2012
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When the opening lead has been made and the dummy displayed, the declarer should pause and review the ARCH checklist.
A - Analyze the opening lead.
R - Review the bidding.
C - Count your winners (notrump) or
your losers (suit).
H - How will you play the hand?
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A - Analyze
The opening lead depends a lot on whether you are in a notrump or a
suit contract. See ACBL07.
Notrump Contract – Remember the notrump acronym is FIST.
F. If it appears to be Fourth longest in a suit, apply the Rule of
11 to that suit. See ACBL11.
I. If it appears to be the top of a sequence, or an Interior
sequence, decide whether or not a hold-up play will help.
S. If it’s an ace or face card, it is probably from top of a
Sequence (should be of 3). Watch RHO’s attitude signal.
T. If it appears to be the Top of nothing (trying to hit partner’s
suit), watch RHO’s attitude signal.
ACBL16 – Declarer: ARCH Checklist Feb 5, 2012
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A – Analyze (continued)
Suit Contract – Remember the suit acronym is STAMPS.
S. If it’s a Small card, it could be “small from a face card”. If you
finesse the first time, don’t be afraid to later finesse again for
that same face card.
T. If it’s an ace, king, queen or jack, assume it’s the Top of
touching honors. If it turns out that it isn’t, this is a bad
defender and will give you a trick or two along the way
The lead card might be the beginning of a Two-card high low
signal. Can you afford to pull some trump?
A. The lead of an Ace might be from a singleton or a doubleton.
.
M. A non-ace or non-face card lead could be a Mud signal.
P. And of course a trump lead is to Pull/Push trumps to cut down
on ruffing.
S. There are some clues to detect possible Singleton leads.
1. If the opening leader preempted, the opening lead in another
suit will probably be a singleton. Better pull one-or-more
trumps.
2. If the lead is RHO’s bid suit, beware, it could be a singleton. If
you have the ace and queen of that suit in dummy; think
twice before taking finesse for the king.
ACBL16 – Declarer: ARCH Checklist Feb 5, 2012
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R - Review
If you too suffer from a limited memory, as declarer, ask for a review of the bidding immediately after the last “PASS”. If you’re using bidding boxes, ask for a review of the bidding cards before they are returned to their boxes.
Review the bidding to get a feel for the distribution of suits and high card points.
1. Did someone preempt? If so, beware of a bad trump split.
Expect other suits to have uneven distribution.
2. Have the opponents agreed on a suit? if so, how is that suit split?
Is it 4x4, 5x3, 5x4, 5x5, 6x2, 6x3 or 6x4?
3, Does one opponent appear to have the majority of points? That
is, high cards which might be finessable?
4. Did both opponents pass all the way? If so, play the outstanding
high cards to be evenly distributed.
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C - Count
Winners – This is for notrump contracts
Count your “for-sure” winners first, based on the cards in both
hands.. Subtract that number from the contract tricks needed, and
the remainder is the of number of tricks you must develop.
Example: Contract is 3 notrump. That’s 9 tricks. You count 7 winners.
That leaves 2 tricks which you must develop. See HOW
below.
ACBL16 – Declarer: ARCH Checklist Feb 5, 2012
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C - Count – Winners: For notrump contracts (continued)
Scan each suit for “sure trick” winners, not “maybes”.
1. An ace is 1. Ace-king is 2. Ace-king-queen is 3. etc.
2. An ace-queen is only 1, as is an ace-jack.
3. An 8 card suit (5 opposite 3) headed by ace-king-queen is 5.
Ace-king only would be 4. Ace-queen only would be 3. Ace
only is 2. If headed by a queen-jack in the same hand, it’s
only 1.
4. King-queen is 1. King-queen-jack is 2. etc.
5. An 8 card suit (6 opposite 2) headed by an ace only is 4. By
ace-king is 5, and by ace-king-queen is 6.
6. Note that a king-jack is zero. Same for a queen-jack.
Count – Losers: For suit contracts
Count your sure losers, again based on the cards in both hands. If
you have too many losers to make the contract, you will have to
eliminate some of them. See HOW below.
You count losers for the 3 top cards only.
1. In suits without an ace or face card, a singleton is 1 loser. A
doubleton is 2. Any more is only 3.
2. Ace X is 1, ace X X is 2, and ace any more is still only 2.
3. King singleton is 1. King double is 2. King third or more is 3
It’s the same count for a queen or jack.
ACBL16 – Declarer: ARCH Checklist Feb 5, 2012
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4. King-jack is 2 and king-jack-more is 3.
5. Queen-jack doubleton is 2, and queen-jack third in the same
hand is still only 2.
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C/H - Count vs How
The typical mistake made by players learning ARCH is to miscount winners (notrump) or losers (suit) by mentally jumping ahead to how they are going to play the hand. Some examples:
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H - How
If you’ve taken the time to do the ARC of ARCH, then the HOW should become a little easier.
How - Suit Contracts
1. If the dummy has a void, singleton or doubleton, you should
get some ruffs. Count the number of potential ruffs by
dummy and subtract that from the number of trumps in
dummy. The difference is the number of trump you may pull
first.
ACBL16 – Declarer: ARCH Checklist Feb 5, 2012
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H - How – Suit Contracts (continued)
Example: In a 4 spade contract you have 3 spades in dummy.
Dummy has a singleton heart. You can pull 1 round of
trump and then use dummy’s last 2 spades for heart
ruffs.
Note: In the above example you would have the ace of hearts. If
not, you would have to give up the lead in hearts. If you
did, a good defender would immediately lead trump to stop
dummy’s ruffing. So you wouldn’t pull that first round of
trump until after you lead the heart.
2. Trumping with the “long” hand (the one with more trumps)
will buy you nothing in the way of an extra trick.
3. When you have too many losers, you must try to get rid of them
as soon as possible. The possibilities are:
a. Ruff them in dummy. (See above)
b. Slough them on immediate winners in dummy or your hand,
i.e., on aces and kings in other suits.
c. Take an early finesse to set up an honor in the opposite hand
for a pitch.
d. With a king in a loser suit, take a finesse in another suit so
that it could only lose to the opponent behind the king.
e. When you have a singleton loser opposite a king high suit in
the other hand, lead that singleton as early as possible.
Defenders do tend to hold up with their aces. Note that it
doesn’t matter which hand (declarer’s or dummy’s) has the
singleton.
ACBL16 – Declarer: ARCH Checklist Feb 5, 2012
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H - How – Suit Contracts (continued)
4. When the “long” hand has 6+ trumps, it’s a good technique to
run trump forcing the opponents to have discard problems.
a. They may give you a clue on a side suit that has a two-way
finesse.
b. They may set up a 4th card in a side suit in dummy or your
hand.
c. By deliberately not discarding a suit an opponent may tip off
that he/she has one-or-more honors in that suit.
d. They may have to discard honors to protect honors in another
suit.
5. Learn to give up the lead so that the opponents may give you a
favorable return lead. Such as:
a. A free finesse.
b. Break a new suit for you.
c. Give you a slough-and ruff.
H - How - Notrump Contracts
1. Does the Rule of 11 apply to the opening lead?
2. Can you give up the lead to set up a long suit?
3. On a two-way finesse, which way looks best?
4. Should you cash winners first or give up the lead?
ACBL16 – Declarer: ARCH Checklist Feb 5, 2012
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H - How - Notrump Contracts
5. Can I, or should I play for or a doubleton ace in front of a king?
See ACBL14 series on finessing.
6. Always watch for favorable distributions on your long suits,
that is, 4-3-3-3 and 5-3-3-2
H - How Recap
Once you have become comfortable with the ARC of ARCH:
1. You should know whether to immediately pull trump or to
work on the side suits first.
2. You should know whether or not to take a finesse based on
the opening lead.
3. You should know whether or not it is a cross ruff hand.
4. You should know whether to set up a long suit in your hand or
dummy. If so, maybe one or two ruffs will be needed.
ARCH - Last Word
You must learn that good players frequently give up the lead to make their contracts.