ACBL44 - General: Card Sense Ward Trumbull
Apr 15, 2013
Page 1 of 2
The bridge column in the Orange County Register on Monday April 8, 2013 covered a bridge subject that seldom is featured in bridge
columns in newspapers or magazines. That is “card sense”. Unfortunately the text began with the hackneyed question:
“Are some bridge players born with card sense? “
Then it never defined just what card sense really is. I see it as a skill developed by card players who pay close attention to the cards
being played by their opponents, whether the game is bridge, poker,
cribbage, euchre, hearts or war (?). Then a brilliant card sense play is based on an earlier observation, duly noted by that player.
If you could be born with this nebulous “card sense” gene, perhaps the blood testing laboratories could develop a test to identify this type birth defect. If so, the gene may be passed from a
good card sense parent to their child. If you are fortunate to be a
card sense player, maybe (before your birth) your mother bestowed
her own type master point awards to the good male card players in her neighborhood.
Following is the difficult three no-trump hand which can be made
by a declarer who has card sense. The opening lead is the 4 of spades by east, dummy’s spade 3, west’s jack and declarer’s ace
taking the trick.
Note: I detest fourth longest leads from 10 fourth.
Fourth longest is a variation of the BOSTON rule for opening leads.
BOS is bottom-of-something, where the “something” is an ace or
one-or-more face cards, not a ten!
ACBL44 - General: Card Sense Ward Trumbull
Apr 15, 2013
Page 2 of 2
S - Q 8 3
S - 10 6 5 4 H - A 10 S - K J 2
H - K Q 2 D - K 7 4 H - J 9 8 3
D - 6 5 3 2 C - A K 10 4 2 D - 9 8
C - J 3 C - Q 9 8 7
S - A 9 7
H - 7 6 5 4
D - A Q J 10
C - 6 5
Note Again: The bridge columns give you these type brilliant
declarer plays based on the assumption that the
defenders use basic defensive signals; such as:
when following suit.
On this hand, declarer notes that west played the jack of spades. Lower of touching honors? If so, east must have the ten.
So at trick 2, declarer leads the spade 9 to finesse east’s ten. Thus
the nine tricks will be 2 spades, one heart (the ace), four diamonds and two clubs.
Note Final : The newspaper also pointed that most players (lacking card sense) would go set on this hand by
trying to get an extra trick in clubs.