- An interruption or a delay: What's the holdup? We're in a hurry.
- An armed robbery.
|
Results for holdup
|
On this page:
|
noun
Holdup is a play in contract bridge, whereby the declarer ducks one or more trick to opponents, usually in notrump contracts, in order to cut their communications. The primary purpose of holdup is to give as many tricks to opponents as needed to exhaust all the cards in the suit from one of their hands. If that hand regains the lead, it will not be able to put the partner on lead to cash its tricks. Holdup is one of basic techniques in play.
| ♠ | J 10 7 | ||||
| ♥ | 10 8 3 2 | ||||
| ♦ | A 5 3 | ||||
| ♣ | K J 10 | ||||
| ♠ | Q 9 6 |
N W E S |
♠ | 5 4 3 2 | |
| ♥ | 7 5 4 | ♥ | Q J 6 | ||
| ♦ | K Q J 10 9 | ♦ | 7 4 2 | ||
| ♣ | 8 3 | ♣ | A 7 4 | ||
| ♠ | A K 8 | ||||
| ♥ | A K 9 | ||||
| ♦ | 8 6 | ||||
| ♣ | Q 9 6 5 2 | ||||
South is playing a contract of three notrump, and West leads the king of diamonds. There are nine needed tricks: two spades, two
hearts, one diamond and four clubs. However, if the declarer wins the ace of diamonds at trick one and drives out the ace of
clubs, the defenders will cash four diamond tricks to set the contract.
South can assure the contract (provided the ace of clubs is with East) by holding up the ace of diamonds: (s)he plays low to
the first two diamond tricks (known as ducking) and wins the ace of diamonds on the third
trick. Now, when East wins the ace of clubs, (s)he has no diamonds left to play. If West holds the ace of clubs, the contract is
impossible to make. If, on the other hand, East had a diamond, that would mean that diamonds were originally split 4-4 and
defenders could only cash three tricks in the suit, so the contract wasn't endangered.
In the hand above, there are five diamonds in the combined North-South hands, and declarer must duck two tricks (winning the third).
If there were an additional diamond in either the North or South hand, for a total of six, then declarer need only duck one trick (winning the second). This is because if West has five diamonds (and North-South six), then East will have only two and will be out of diamonds after two rounds of the suit. If East does have three diamonds, then West will have only four and the defenders can cash only two additional diamond tricks (for a total of three) upon winning the ace of clubs.
This rule, of course, assumes you are playing in 3 NT. It can be generalized for all notrump contracts as follows:
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
Join the WikiAnswers Q&A community. Post a question or answer questions about "holdup" at WikiAnswers.
Copyrights:
![]() | Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more | |
![]() | Thesaurus. Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary Copyright © 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more | |
![]() | Antonyms. © 1999-2008 by Answers Corporation. All rights reserved. Read more | |
![]() | Word Tutor. Copyright © 2004-present by eSpindle Learning, a 501(c) nonprofit organization. All rights reserved. eSpindle provides personalized spelling and vocabulary tutoring online; free trial. Read more | |
![]() | Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Holdup (bridge)". Read more |
Mentioned In: