Declarer Play: Playing the Odds and Improving Your Skills
Bridge is a game of percentages. When you are declarer, it is always helpful to know these simple odds combinations. It will give you the best chance to successfully make your contract. This knowledge will enable you to better figure out your best chance to take the maximum number of tricks in various situations.
Knowing the odds will also help you decide which overall line of play you should take to make your contract. For example, if you have to choose between playing for a 7-card side suit to break 3-3 or taking a successful finesse, you'll know that the finesse offers a higher percentage of success (50%) than the suit break (36%).
Here's a brief summary of how suits will break and how likely it is that a finesse will be successful.
Odds of suit breaks:
In general:
An ODD number of missing cards will tend to break evenly -- if you are missing 5 cards in a suit, they will divide 3-2 more often than 4-1.
An
EVEN number of missing cards will tend to break unevenly -- if you are missing 6 cards in a suit, they will divide 4-2 more often than 3-3.
If you have a combined fit of 7 cards in a suit (your opponents have 6 cards):
Odds of a 3-3 break = 36%
4-2 = 48%
5-1 = 15%
6-0 = 1%
You have 8, they have 5:
3-2 = 68%
4-1 = 28%
5-0 = 4%
You have 9 , they have 4:
2-2 = 41%
3-1 = 50%
4-0 = 10%
You have 10, they have 3:
2-1 = 78%
