Coup en passant is a type of
coup in
contract bridge
Contract bridge, or simply bridge, is a trick-taking card game using a standard 52-card deck. In its basic format, it is played by four players in two competing partnerships, with partners sitting opposite each other around a table. Millions o ...
where trump trick(s) are "stolen" by trying to
ruff
Ruff may refer to:
Places
*Ruff, Virginia, United States, an unincorporated community
*Ruff, Washington, United States, an unincorporated community
Other uses
*Ruff (bird) (''Calidris pugnax'' or ''Philomachus pugnax''), a bird in the wader fami ...
a card after the player who has the master trump(s).
Just as the
trump coup
The trump coup is a contract bridge coup used when the hand on lead (typically the dummy) has no trumps remaining, while the next hand in rotation has only trumps, including a high one that would have been onside for a direct finesse if a trump ...
resembles a
direct finesse, except that trumps are not the suit led, so the ''coup en passant'' similarly resembles an
indirect finesse.
Examples
In this example, spades are trump, and declarer (South) takes two tricks by playing hearts first. Then, with clubs led from the dummy, declarer ruffs if and only if East does not. South's diamond loser will go under East's ace of spades on one of the last two tricks, and South's king will take the other trick.
Here both players have the same number of trumps, but the hand would play the same way if either or both had a small trump in place of the small diamond. The important thing is that declarer must have few enough trumps that dummy can be entered at the critical time.
Coup en passant can be performed even with several high trumps in the opponent's hand. In the example, South would lose all remaining tricks if the lead were in East's hand. However, if a heart is played from dummy, and East ruffs, South will discard the losing diamond (what is, in effect, a
loser on loser play). If East discards, South will ruff, "stealing" a trick.
See also
*
Trump promotion
Trump promotion is a technique in contract bridge where the defenders create an otherwise non-existing Contract bridge glossary#T, trump trick for themselves. The most common type of trump promotion occurs when one defender plays a side suit (cards ...
External links
BridgeGuys Glossary
{{DEFAULTSORT:Coup En Passant
Contract bridge coups