Q: Could you explain a bit more to me how do I as declarer determine what is my “working” suit?  Is it the suit that gives me the most problems – or is it a suit that is long and outside of my trump suit?

I hear you use that term quite a bit in the videos but as a novice I am not sure once the dummy goes down and I have counted my losers to then know what suit I need to set up, which I think you are calling the working suit.

A: Great question!

The working suit is defined as the suit which needs to be “worked” on during the play of the hand to either develop extra tricks (in notrump contracts) or eliminate tricks (in suit contracts).  It is not necessarily a long suit or a short suit…just one that needs to be worked on to develop or eliminate tricks.

In the video lessons, I talk about going suit by suit by suit twice.  The first time through you are counting winners (in notrump contract) or losers (in suit contracts) and then you go back through each suit and look for ways of creating winners (in notrump contracts) or eliminate losers ( in suit contracts).  When you find a suit that you can either create or eliminate the loser(s), that is your working suit!

See you online!

Donna