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 11 Basic approach|cs|3|at|

 




                  {compiled by Harold Schogger}|at|





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            (5th blackened icon along bottom line)|pg||st||md|C53,CAj972,Cq84,Ckt6|mb|1n,p,3n,p,p,p|sk|e|pc|c7|pc|c8|nt|South is in contract of 3NT and partner leads the @C7|pg||nt|it's your turn to play. Do you automatically play the King (3rd hand plays high rule) or do you know about the Rule of 11 ?|pg||nt|The rule of 11 says that you take the number of pips from the card that has been led away from 11 and that determines how many cards higher than the card that has been led are to be shared by the remaining 3 hands.|pg||nt|so let us apply that here
|cs|3|at|

  {11-7=4  therefore there should be 4 cards higher than this 7 to be shared by North(dummy), 
    East (me), and South (declarer)}|pg||nt||nt|we can see the Q8 in dummy and the K10 in our own hand|pg||nt|Therefore if the rule works we now know that declarer has nothing higher than the 7 that has been led and we can play the 10|pc|ct|pg||nt|and let's watch what happens|pc|c3|cs|3|at|
     
    {we have won the trick with the 10 and our king is still in tact}|pg||nt|we will now be able to play our King and then over to partner who will take three more tricks and defeat the contract by one|pg||nt|Before I reveal all the cards let us see what we know from the lead at trick one|md|C53,CAj972,Cq84,Ckt6|mb|1n,p,3n,p,p,p|pc|c7|pg||nt|we know that partner has three cards higher than the 7 he has led (since the 7 is his 4th highest)|pg||nt|what cards higher than the 7 can you see ?|cs|4|at|
    

         {I can see the K10 in hand and the Q8 in dummy}|pg||nt||cs|3|at|

      {The only cards I cannot see are the A J and 9}|pg||nt||cs|4|at|        
       {Since partner has three cards higher than the 7 he led they must all be in his hand}|pg||nt|           
           Therefore if we completely think it through here, 
           we didn't even need Rule of 11 in this situation|pg||nt|now let me reveal all the hands to verify that the 10 was good enough to win the first trick|md|C53,CAj972,Cq84,Ckt6|sk| |pg||nt|you can now see that if you had in fact played the King at trick one you would have certainly won the trick BUT it would be now be too late since declarer can stop the run of the suit with dummy's remaining Queen|pg||nt|now you can see all the hands to verify that the 10 was good enough to win the first trick|bt||nt||cs|4|at|       
          {So why do we take the card away from 11}|cs|3|pg||nt|
           let us lay all the cards out in a line as follows :-

                                @C AKQJ1098765432

|cs|4|at|                  {we count from 2 up to 14 - of course there are 
                  not 14 cards but for the sake of this counting 
                   we count up to 14!!!!}|pg||nt|             
          since there are 3 cards higher in the leader's hand when the leader led 4th highest|cs|4|at|   
   


       {we arrive at the following conclusion 14-3 = 11}|pg||nt|


                      It is not important to know why we take it away from 11  but The Rule of 11 does
                       speed up the thought processes.

                 We will look at further examples later|