contract bridge Contract bridge, or simply bridge, is a trick-taking card game using a standard 52-card deck. In its basic format, it is played by four players in two competing partnerships, with partners sitting opposite each other around a table. Millions ...

, avoidance play is a play technique whereby declarer prevents a particular defender from winning the trick, so as to eschew a dangerous lead from that hand. The dangerous hand is usually the one who is able to

finesse In contract bridge and similar games, a finesse is a type of card play technique which will enable a player to win an additional trick or tricks should there be a favorable position of one or more cards in the hands of the opponents. The player a ...

through declarer's honors, to give a ruff to the partner or to cash one or more established winners. Avoidance play can be regarded as one type of

safety play Safety play in contract bridge is a generic name for plays in which declarer maximizes the chances for fulfilling the contract (or achieving a certain score) by ignoring a chance for a higher score. Declarer uses safety plays to cope with potentiall ...

Example

South plays 4 and West leads K (indicating the ace), East playing the 3 (

signal In signal processing, a signal is a function that conveys information about a phenomenon. Any quantity that can vary over space or time can be used as a signal to share messages between observers. The '' IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing' ...

ling the odd number of hearts and discouraging the continuation). West continues with a club, increasing the probability of defensive ruff in that suit. The declarer has plenty of tricks, but is missing the trump queen and two top hearts; giving up the third heart early would probably mean losing the contract. Since A is almost certainly with West, if East gets the trump queen, he could finesse declarer's Q. Thus, the declarer must not allow East to get the trick, and so must play a trump first and finesse against the queen in East's hand. If West has the Q and takes it, he could only take one more heart trick. Note that, even if South had a fifth trump instead of a diamond (playing in 5-4 fit), the same technique—finessing the queen against East—would practically ensure the contract (safety play). If the trumps are distributed x—Qxx, the

percentage play Percentage play in contract bridge is a play influenced by mathematical factors when more than one reasonable line of play is available. It is a generic name for plays in which declarer maximizes the chances for obtaining a certain number of trick ...

of playing AK in trumps would endanger the contract, as East could ruff a later round of clubs with Q and play a heart through. With the avoidance finesse, West could win a "non-existing" trump trick if the trumps were distributed Qx–xx, but could not set the contract.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Avoidance Play Contract bridge card play