Key points:

1. A way of making extra tricks with cards that were not originally top winners is to knock out the defender's higher card or cards.  This way we promote some of our cards into winners.
2. If we need to lose the lead, it's better to do so early while we can still win back the lead in any suit.

Now here are 3 hands to play to practice promoting some of our cards into winners.

Key points:

1. In No Trumps, when defenders have run out of a suit any small cards we have left are winners.
2. In No Trumps, if we have a long suit it is likely to be clubs or diamonds (with 8 or more cards in hearts or spades we would have chosen the suit as trumps).  
3. With suits of 7 or more cards we look for the potential of making small cards into winners.  
4. The more evenly the defenders cards are split, the fewer rounds are needed to draw them all out.

Now here are 2 hands to play to practice making small cards into winners by drawing out all the defender's cards.

Key points:

1. Long suits can generate tricks even without any high cards.
2. If defenders have 5 cards they are most likely to be split 3-2 (with the 3 cards being in either defender's hand).

Here is a hand to play to practice what we have just learned.

Key points:

1. We can usually make extra tricks when we have a long suit, even if we have to lose one or more tricks on the way.

Key points:

1. If there are an odd number of cards outstanding, they are likely to be split as evenly as possible.
2. If there are an even number of cards outstanding, then the nearest odd split is more likely than an even split.
3. The exception to this is if there are just 2 cards outstanding , where a 1-1 split is marginally more likely than 2-0 (52% vs 48%).

That completes this lesson. Scroll down for the Lesson Progress Check.