Techniques by declarer

* trumping or

ruffing In trick-taking games, to ruff means to play a trump card to a trick (other than when trumps were led). According to the rules of most games, a player must have no cards left in the suit led in order to ruff. Since the other players are constraine ...

and crossruffing *establishing a long suit * finessing *

ducking In audio engineering, ducking is an audio effect commonly used in radio and pop music, especially dance music. In ducking, the level of one audio signal is reduced by the presence of another signal. In radio this can typically be achieved by low ...

*blocking and unblocking *managing entries *maintaining tempo *drawing trumps *not drawing trumps

Advanced techniques by declarer

* card reading, also known as counting the hand * dummy reversal *

endplay An endplay (also ''throw-in''), in bridge and similar games, is a tactical play where a defender is put on lead at a strategic moment, and then has to make a play that loses one or more tricks. Most commonly the losing play either constitutes a fr ...

* coups * squeezes *

suit combinations In the card game contract bridge, a suit combination is a specific subset of the cards of one suit held respectively in declarer's and dummy's hands at the onset of play. While the ranks of the remaining cards held by the defenders can be deduced ...

play *

safety play Safety play in contract bridge is a generic name for plays in which declarer maximizes the chances for fulfilling the contract (or achieving a certain score) by ignoring a chance for a higher score. Declarer uses safety plays to cope with potentiall ...

*applying the

principle of restricted choice In contract bridge, the principle of restricted choice states that "The play of a card which may have been selected as a choice of equal plays increases the chance that the player started with a holding in which his choice was restricted." Cruciall ...

*applying the theory of vacant places *applying percentages and probabilities

Techniques by defenders

* making the

opening lead The opening lead is the first card played in the playing phase of a contract bridge deal. The defender sitting to the left (LHO) of the declarer is the one who makes the opening lead. Since it is the only card played while dummy's cards are still c ...

signaling In signal processing, a signal is a function that conveys information about a phenomenon. Any quantity that can vary over space or time can be used as a signal to share messages between observers. The ''IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing'' ...

* unblocking * overtaking * holding up. {{WPCBIndex Contract bridge card play