cr|264|cb|2255|cg|2255|cr|1255|cb|164|cg|1255|cr|364|cb|364|cg|3255|cr|4255|cb|464|cg|464|cr|5255|cb|5255|cg|5255|bg|5|bt||mn|Rule of SEVEN compiled by Harold Schogger|cs|3|at|

 




                  {compiled by Harold Schogger}|cs|5|at|






   Use the 6th  ^$40  button on the toolbar below to advance to the next page. 
            (6th blackened icon along bottom line)

            Once you start, Use the  5th ^$40  button on the toolbar below to go back
            to previous  page to go over a point as many times as you like.
            (5th blackened icon along bottom line)|pg||

st||nt|               You are in 3NT and the opponents lead your most precarious suit   |pn|South,West,North,East,South,West,North,East|md|sa64hkj84daj94c72,skqjt9h97dt3c8654,s73hqt3dkq52caj93,s852ha652d876ckqt|sk|ns|sv|0|mb|1n,p,3n,p,p.p|mb|p,p,p|cs|3|at|

                   {@s, the only suit with one controlling card OUCH}|at|

         west leads the @sK|pc|sk|pg||
nt|
            You take stock and calculate that you have 6 winners  
            by way of 1 Spade, 4 Diamonds and 1 Club|cs|4|pg||nt|                   
                You will have to dislodge their @HA  to establish the Heart suit  to produce those three extra tricks|cs|4|at|

                 { but they are sure to fire back more Spades and immediately defeat you} |pg||













nt|unless you can cut communications between the 2 defenders|pg||nt|let us look at the Spade suit, in isolation, showing all four hands|md|Sa64,Skqjt9,s73d2,s852|sk||cs|3|at|

{as you can now see, West started with 5 spades and East just 3 therefore}|cs|4|at|

 {if you do not take your Ace until the third round then East will be exhausted of his Spades}|pg||nt|West leads @sK  and you refuse the first trick|wt|w|pc|sk|pc|s3|pc|s2|pc|s4|pg||wt/w/wtwtwest peseveres with another top spadepgnt|West perseveres with another top Spade|pc|sq|pc|s7|pc|s5|pc|s4|at|

          and again you hold up refusing to win the Spade|pg||nt|West plays yet another spade and you chuck off an insignificant card  from dummy, @d2|pc|sj|pc|d2|pc|s8|pc|sa|pg||nt|you can now see all four hands and that East's Spades have now been exhausted|pg||nt|now  look at the Spade suit in conjunction with the Hearts, the suit whose Ace you have to dislodge|md|sa64hkj84,skqjt9h97,s73hqt3d2,s852ha652|at|

           and replay the hand to the point where East's Spades were exhausted|pg||nt|west leads his spades and continues for three rounds as before|wt|w|pc|sk|pc|s3|pc|s2|pc|s4|pg||pc|sq|pc|s7|pc|s5|pc|s6|pg||pc|sj|pc|d2|pc|s8|pc|sa|pg||nt|Now you will dislodge the @HA and see what happens|pc|h4|pc|h7|pc|hq|pc|ha|pg||nt|The good news is |cs|3|at|{ East is out of Spades and whatever he now plays back you are in control}|cs|4|at|

      {You have totally severed communications between the West and East defenders}|pg||nt|Now you can look at the problem with all four hands |md|sa64hkj84daj94c72,skqjt9h97dt3c8654,s73hqt3dkq52caj93,s852ha652d876ckqt|pg||nt|By holding up for three rounds of Spades, West cannot get back to his partner and the contract is safe|cs|3|at|

{the element of luck here is that EAST  has the @HA  and not West the player with all the Spades}|pg||md|sa64hkj84daj94c72,skqjth976dt3c8654,s73hqt3dkq52caj93,s9852ha52d876ckqt|nt|Now if the Spades had broken 44  instead of 53  as shown now|cs|3|at|

{you will still be all right as the worst that can happen is that the defence takes 3 Spades and the Heart Ace}|pg||bt||nt|


                 This means we have to prepare for 53  breaks
                  rather than 44 breaks and  hold up accordingly|cs|4|at|

{^*BTherefore if we had more cards between the 2 hands we might not have to hold up for three rounds as in the following example  on the next page^*N}|pg||st||nt|Now you have 6 cards in their  suit  and you do not need to hold up for two rounds, in fact only 1 round  to cut communications  between the 2 defenders|md|sa64hkj84daj94c72,skqjt9h9dt43c8654,s732hqt3dkq52caj9,s85ha7652d87ckqt3|pg||nt|In the  first example you had to hold up for two rounds as above|md|SA64,SKQJt9, S73,S852|pg||nt|but in the second  example above, you only need to hold up one round|md|SA64,SKQJt9, S732,S85|pg||bt||nt|


                   So the Rule of seven tells how many times you might need to
                   hold up and it works like this  :-|cs|4|at|

    { in your precarious suit count how many cards you have between your hand and those in dummy}|cs|3|at|


   { Take this grand total away from 7}|cs|2|at|



{ The total is the number of times you need to hold up to break communications between those nasty defenders who attacked you most vulnerable suit}||||