Play of the Cards - Cashing your honours

Contract: 3 No Trumps
Lead: Queen of Spades

			K 7
			A 10 5
			Q 10 4 2
			Q 10 8 3
	Q J 10 8 4	N W E S			9 3 2
	7 4				9 6 3 2
	9 5				A 7 6
	A J 4 2				K 9 7
			A 6 5
			K Q J 8
			K J 8 3
			6 5

Check that the bidding is carried out as you explained, put right those who have made a mistake after consulting the Decision Table.

Let them play the hands completely freely but suggest the lead of Queen of Spades (advice 2.3 & 2.4): the result will be between seven and ten tricks (advice 2.5).

As they finish go to each table and ask what happened whilst trying to get a résumé of the hand, congratulating those who have won (even if they don't know why or how) and don't forget to console the opponents pointing out that in Bridge everyone does what they can with the cards they have and that sometimes it is impossible to prevent the opponent winning even if one is a very good player.

Make them guess why and value any response of the kind:
"because you can't do anything if the opponents have all the big cards".

Then you can introduce the notion of certain tricks which we will define like this:

We will apply this definition quickly to the hand that they have just played and write it on the board; the children must suggest normally a total of five or six certain tricks in North/South, the error of five coming from the fact that they may only see three tricks in Hearts.

You should now make them think about finding the three missing tricks after noting that in Hearts and Spades you have made the "book" with six tricks(advice 2.6). They shouldn't take too long to see that they can make three tricks in Diamonds after conceding the Ace(advice 2.7); so you can lead them to the deduction that they must play this suit to win the contract.

You can close the demonstration by saying to them without further explanation(advice 2.8) that this suit must be played first and by getting them to memorise the principle of the day: