Basic Sure Tricks
The easiest tricks to take in bridge are sure tricks. Sure tricks are tricks where you have the top honors (A, AK, AKQ, etc) in a suit, and enough length in at least one hand to cash them all. For example if I have:
Then if either North or South is in the lead, we can take 2 spade tricks. We can take the A and then the K, or we can take them in the other order. If I had this:
I would have 3 sure tricks, and again could take them in any order.
Blocking and Blocked Suits
Sometimes a suit is blocked. This means that in that suit, you will be stuck in that hand. Here’s a simple example:
In this hand, you have 2 spade tricks, but you have to be careful. When you take the ace, you won’t have a spade to lead back. You’ll have to get the lead back to your hand from dummy in a different suit.
Blocking a suit is playing to make a suit blocked when you had a play that would avoid creating a blocked suit. For example if you have:
If you play the King or Queen, first, the suit will now be blocked. You can avoid blocking a suit as long as you have one low card in the short hand if you take the winners in the short hand first. So above, if you cash the Ace first, then you can get three tricks easily in spades. This rule isn’t an absolute, but you need a good reason to not follow it. Here is the same diagram played correctly.
Let’s look at a complete hand and count the sure tricks.
In this hand you have 8 sure tricks. 2 Spades, 2 Hearts, 3 Diamonds, 1 Club. Note that the diamonds are blocked but you have entries to get to dummy after you cash the ♦A and ♦K. An entry is a pair of cards that can be led from one hand and won in the other to transfer the lead. Here you have an entry to dummy in spades (5, A) , hearts (2, K), and clubs (5, A). The example uses the entry in clubs to get to the ♦Q after unblocking.