This may have been a true reflection of roles in the days when women were not supposed to trouble their pretty little heads with numbers but nowadays it behoves players of both sexes to keep their counting skills well honed at the bridge table.

The most common use of the term “counting” applies to situations where you are interested in knowing how many cards in a suit have been played by the opponents when one is drawing trumps or establishing a long suit. It also applies when trying to work out the opponents’  distribution in order to place missing cards. For example, if an opponent has bid hearts during a contested auction, showing at least 5 cards in that suit, and during the play it is revealed that they also started with 4 spades, they can have at most 4 cards in the minor suits. This information could be the key to how you should play, say clubs, to pick up a missing honor card. In general, if you are missing the ♣Q, it is statistically better to finesse against the hand known to have more cards in that suit.

However, this is not the end of the story: Counting the points one’s opponents have shown up with during the play may give you critical information regarding the location of the missing lady. As an example, take the hand I kibitzed in a pairs competition. A very sharp lady, Vera, was playing South in a 3NT contract, reached after her opponent West had dealt and passed.

West led his fourth highest heart, the ♥5. The ♥9 from dummy held the first trick when East followed with the ♥2.

The contract was safe with 3 certain tricks in clubs and 2 in each of the other suits, but Vera was clearly at the table to win. She was not content to simply feed on the easy pickings of bread and honey available. She was hungry for 10 tricks. How would you have played the clubs for 4 tricks in that suit?

Well, from the play to the first trick, West was marked with both the ♥A and ♥K and 7 points in that suit, so Vera made the crucial “discovery” play of leading a diamond at trick two and finessing the ♦Q. When West won with the ♦K the hand was an open and shut case: If West had had the ♣Q in addition to the heart and diamond honors, giving him at least 12 points, he would surely have opened the bidding. The ♣Q was thus almost certainly with East and Vera played that suit accordingly for 10 tricks and a joint top.

Most discovery plays involve running side suits in order to get a picture of the opponents’ distribution but very often it is important to give up a trick, or tricks, at an early stage in the play, in order to get a count of the opponents’ cards when subsequently running a long suit. This early play of conceding tricks for the said purpose, is referred to as “rectifying the count”.
A few hands later in the same tournament, Vera found herself in a vulnerable 4Sp contract after East had dealt and opened with a (horrible) weak 2 in hearts at favorable vulnerability.

West led a small heart. When dummy came down, Vera saw she was again in the bread and honey situation of an easy contract. She could ruff two heart losers, leaving herself with one loser in diamonds and two in clubs. But she was still in the counting business and saw a way to make an overtrick.

She ruffed the opening lead in dummy and immediately played a diamond to her King. West won with his Ace. Seeing the danger of playing either minor, he exited with a trump. Vera won and ruffed her small heart with dummy’s remaining spade.

She returned to her hand by ruffing a diamond. Two rounds of spades drew the opponents’ spades, West discarding his remaining small heart on the second round. At this stage the count was clear: West was left with 6 cards in the minors; East with 4 hearts and 2 minor cards. This, in fact was the situation after 7 tricks had been played:

At the eighth trick, Vera led the ♣J from her hand and let it run to West’s ♣Q. (It wouldn’t have been a mistake for West to cover with the King as the cards lie.) The opponents were now doomed. If East had had the ♦Q, a lead of that card would have established dummy’s ♦J but her actual lead of a small diamond appeared at first to be harmless. Vera ruffed and played her two high hearts. West was squeezed: he either had to discard his winning diamond or bare his ♣K. He chose the latter and declarer, with a perfect count of his hand, knew to discard dummy’s ♦J, play a small club to the ♣A and then the ♣7 to win the last trick with the ♣10 in her hand. The overtrick earned her another good score. A profitable time spent in the counting house, indeed!