Bridge lessons · Lesson 8 of 26
Setting Up a Long Suit
Updated 16 October 2026
High cards are not the only cards that win tricks. Once the opponents have no cards left in a suit, your small cards in it are as good as aces. Take your combined length in the suit from 13 to count the opponents' cards, and expect five missing cards to split 3-2 a bit more than two times in three. A long suit with a gap means a round to lose, so lose it early and keep an entry to the long cards.
How a small card becomes a winner
Take ♦AK652 in dummy opposite ♦743 in your hand. You hold eight diamonds, so the opponents hold the other five. Every time a diamond is led, each opponent must follow with a diamond while they have one. After three rounds they will usually have none left, and dummy's last two diamonds win tricks because nobody can beat them.
To count, add your cards in the suit to dummy's and take that from 13. Then watch as the suit is played. Each round in which both opponents follow removes two of their cards, and when one of them discards, the other holds everything that is left. That tells you exactly when your small cards are high.
How the split changes the count
The opponents' cards can be divided between them in different ways, called the split or the break. Against the 3-2 split you expect with five missing, a 4-1 split comes up a little over one time in four, and 5-0 is rare. The longer the opponent's holding, the more rounds you must play before your small cards are good, and each extra round they win costs you a trick.
The suit gives four tricks when it splits 3-2. You win the ace and king, lose one round, and the last two diamonds are high. A 4-1 split means losing two rounds, so you get three, and against 5-0 only the ace and king make. You cannot choose the split, but you can plan for the likely one and count each round as it is played. The suit break odds guide has the figures for every number of missing cards.
Give up a trick early, and keep a way back
The round you have to lose in a suit with a gap is best lost early, while you still hold winners in the other suits, so the opponents cannot take a string of tricks when they get in. Then the small cards that are left in your long suit are winners for later.
The long suit's winners are also only useful if you can get to them. A card that lets you win a trick in a particular hand is called an entry. If the long suit is in dummy and dummy has no high card in any other suit, its ace and king are its only entries. Play the ace and king first and lose the third round, and dummy's last two cards are stranded, because you have no way back. Lose the first round instead, playing a small card from both hands, and the ace and king are still there to bring you back to dummy when the suit is ready to run.
You are South in 3NT. Watch the diamonds.
South opens 2NT with 21 points and a balanced hand, and North, with 7 points, raises to 3NT. West leads the ♠J, the top of a sequence. Count your sure winners: three spades, two hearts, two diamonds and the ♣A. That is eight, one short of nine.
The habit to keep
Look for your longest suit across the two hands and count the opponents' cards in it before you play to trick one. Work out which round you have to lose, lose it early, and make sure the long hand still has an entry when the suit is ready. Then count the suit as it is played, so you know the moment your small cards have become winners.
For the chances of each split, see suit break odds. For playing a suit with a gap in the middle, the next lesson starts on the finesse.
Practice: setting up a long suit
Eight quick questions on what you just read.