Often though Safety Plays involve losing a trick that you might not have if you played the cards in a different order but by doing so you guarantee sufficent tricks to make your contract.
These are just a few examples to get you thinking along those lines.
Often, at pairs, even if you recognise the situation you may still decide to gamble for a TOP.
Sometimes you can see that if a suit breaks favourably you will make a certain number of tricks
but if it doesn’t you may,
depending on other factors, go off.
The idea of a “Safety Play” is to maximize your
chances of making the contract.
At pairs you may risk the breaks in order to make overtricks but at Teams, Chicago or Rubber you
would always make this type of play
if it is available
A simple example of making sure of your contract.
Overtricks are not the issue, just play carefully to make the contract
♠ Ax ♥ Axxx
♦ K1086 ♣ Kxx
♠ xx ♥ KQxx
♦ A943 ♣ Axx
The contract is 4 ♥ and you receive a Spade lead.
You duck and win the second Spade with the Ace and take trumps, fortunately in three rounds
You must lose a Club. Can you avoid 2 Diamond losers if they break badly? You make the safety
play of a small Diamond towards Dummy
and cover whatever West plays; literally, if you play the 3 and it is covered by the 5 you play the
6 from Dummy. If West plays the Queen or Jack you can now only lose one Diamond but
assuming they don’t
and East wins they can’t return a Diamond without giving you the suit.
So on a Club switch
you simply cash the Ace and King and give up a Club.
Whoever wins must either lead the Diamonds for no further loss or give you a ruff and discard
Note that if you had cashed ♦ AK hoping for a 3/2 break
and someone had QJxx you would have gone off.
♠ Q832 ♥ AK32
♥ 65 ♣ A65
♠A4 ♥ 65
♦ AKQ983 ♣ 832
The contract is 3NT
At Teams or Chicago there is no question; you always make a safety play in this situation.
But what if it is Pairs.
You get the Jack of Spades lead, You play the 2 from Dummy and East plays the King !!.
You can’t afford to duck as , if it is a singleton and they switch to Clubs you are going to
have to rely on the Diamonds breaking.
You have lost your entry to the Diamonds. If you play AKQ and they break 3/2 you will
make 11 tricks but if they don’t you will almost certainly only make 8.
This looks like West has 6 Spades so the lead will be fairly standard.
You need at least 4 Diamond tricks to make your contract.
The Diamonds can split 3/2, 4/1 or 5/0
You can guard against any distribution but all 5 with West which you can do nothing about.
You go to Dummy with the Ace of Hearts and play a small Diamond;
1 If East plays small you play the 9.
If West follows, even if they win with the singleton Jack or Ten, you are guaranteed 5 Diamond tricks.
2 If East plays the Jack or 10 you play the 3! Again provided West follows you
will make 5 tricks.If West shows out you go back to Dummy and finesse the 9 for 5 tricks.
3 If East plays small and the 9 wins and West follows you will make all 6 Diamonds.
But if West shows out you simply cash AKQ and your other winners for 9 tricks in total.
Logic suggests that if West started with 6 Spades nothing is breaking well.
The safety play should be taken.
If you find yourself in this situation and make the safety play and get a poor score
because the suit breaks and many have made 11 tricks
then console yourself that most experts would have done the same
This is a situation where you “Play Safe” to keep control
♥ 7654 ♠ K32
♦ 789 ♣ Q63
♥ A832 ♠ A4 ♦
AKQ ♣ AK54
The contract is 4 ♥ and you can see eight side suit winners ,
providing they don‘t get ruffed.
You are never going to make more than two trumps, but if you
play the Ace and someone has four you may only make one
The safe way is to win the opening lead, unless it is a trump, and lead a small trump and play small from
the other hand.
Do this again when you get back in. If everyone follows you win again and cash the
Ace of trumps and the Spade ruff provides the tenth trick and the last Club may be an eleventh,
If the Trumps don‘t break you will probably get a Spade ruff and still make your contract
This one involves damage limitation.
♠ AK6 ♥ A432 ♦ AKQJ97 ♣ void
♠ Q742 ♥ 65
♦ 32 ♣ A7654
You have arrived in the rather ungainly contract of 4 ♠
instead of the easy 3NT or possible 6 ♦
(makeable on anything but a trump lead.)
Your first thought should be that that it is unlikely that many or indeed anybody will be in the slam.
But a lot will be in 3NT and you can’t do anything about beating them.
But some will be in 5 ♦ making either 11 or 12.
If you can make this contract you will beat those making 11 and equal those making 12.
A minus score will be a disaster but plus 620 could well be at least close to average.
You get the lead of the King of Hearts which you win with the Ace.
If you cash three top Spades and they break 3/2 you will make 11 tricks beating those in
Diamonds but not those in Notrumps
but if they don’t break you will go off.
If they break 5/0 you are in trouble so is there a way to ensure the contract if they break 4/1?
The Safe way is to play Ace of Spades and then the Queen of Spades
(or vice versa, it doesn’t matter).
Then start cashing the Diaimonds until someone ruffs.
They can cash a Heart but you will win the return (ruff a Heart or win the Ace of Clubs) a
nd play a Spade to the King and whether they broke 3/2 or 4/1 you have made the contract and salvaged
something.
There are lots of other situations.
Just get used to thinking “What might happen if I do this or if I do that”.
If this or that can go wrong look for a safe way round the problem.