| Safety Play |
Article Index for Safety |
Website Links For Safety |
Information AboutSafety Play |
|
Safety play in Contract Bridge is a generic name for plays where the declarer maximizes the chances for fulfilling the Contract (or achieving a certain score) by ''possibly'' neglecting a slightly higher score. By performing safety play, the declarer attempts to cope with possible unfavorable lie of opponent's cards, ensuring that the contract is fulfilled even in worst-case scenarions, but giving up the possibilities of Overtricks . There are ''perfect'' safety plays, which assure a certain number of tricks, and there are ''imperfect'' safety plays, which maximize the chance to make a certain number of tricks. Perfect safety plays are sometimes known as precautionary plays in order to distinguish them from imperfect safety plays. Safety plays adapt the odds of the cards to the scoring system. In IMP-scoring Tournaments and Rubber Bridge , the primary concern is to fulfill the contract while overtricks are of secondary interest. Thus, knowledge about safety plays are an important issue in declarer's technique. In Matchpoint games, the goal is to maximize the score on every board and overtricks are very important; in that case, safety plays also have a certain role, but are often neglected if the odds for making the contract are substantially high and overtricks are likely. The following hand is a first example:
| |||
| |||
| |||
|
|||
|
|