How to catch a misère: Kovalevskaya's and Lasker's misère
Misère has a few familiar landmarks. A 7-8 or 7-8-9 in one suit counts as clean: played correctly, it cannot be forced to take a trick. There are also conditionally clean suits: 7-9, 7-8-J, 7-9-J-K. If the defenders lead into such a suit, the declarer can avoid a trick; on a lead from the declarer's own hand, things get more delicate.
But remembering these combinations is not enough to catch a misère. You need to picture how the lead passes to the right hand, which cards to keep, and what you can discard and what is better held back. To sort all this out, let us look at catching on specific layouts. Don't count on the declarer taking a train voluntarily or by mistake, however tempting that hope is.
A misère is usually caught with the discard unknown: the defenders don't know which cards the declarer put away. That adds a healthy dose of excitement and uncertainty, but with correct play you can work out the declarer's cards in the first few leads.
Before the play, check: which card can be caught, who holds lower cards, and what the declarer can throw the dangerous suit on. As examples we will go through combinations with only a few cards, and at the end there is a bonus: Kovalevskaya's misère and Lasker's misère.
Misère is a contract in which the declarer undertakes to take no tricks at all. The defenders only need to hand them one for the contract to fail.
There are no trumps in misère: you must follow suit, and when you can't, you may discard any card. The trick goes to the highest card of the suit led; as in a normal game, whoever takes the trick leads next.
For clarity, the diagrams show only the cards that matter for the play.
Two cards: the 9 catches the 10
East is playing misère and has two hearts left. West to lead: ♥9 or ♣7? Pick a card before you read the answer.
Answer: lead the ♥9. It forces East to follow in hearts: the dangerous ten can no longer be thrown on another suit. South plays last and sees the declarer's card, so they can either let the ten win or take the lead themselves. That guarantees East another trick.
If East plays the ♥10, South plays the ♥8. The ten beats the nine and the eight, so this trick is East's. South must not cover with the ace: then East gets rid of the ten without a trick and plays the safe seven next.
If East plays the ♥7, South takes with the ace. This is needed to pass the lead: only South can then lead the remaining ♥8 under East's ♥10. West has no hearts left and throws the ♣7, and the ten takes the trick. If South spares the ace and plays the eight at once, West gets the lead, leads the ♣7, and East throws the ten.
On a ♣7 lead, East throws the ♥10. Nobody else has clubs, so the lead stays with West, and the declarer is left with the safe ♥7. East takes neither of the two remaining tricks.
Three cards: first take away the exit
Can this misère be caught, and if so, how many tricks does West take? Let us work it out: the key is not to let West throw the ♦8. West has three different suits, and the catching sevens are with South.
The plan is to give West the lead when they no longer have a way out.
- South leads the ♥A. West must play the ♥8, East any heart. The ace takes away the declarer's heart exit and keeps the lead with South. Starting with the small heart would pass the lead to East and give West a discard.
- South leads the ♦7. West must play the ♦8, and East throws a heart, having no diamonds. The eight takes the trick. Now the lead can be given away, because the heart exit is already gone.
- West leads the remaining ♣7. The defenders have no clubs, so the seven takes the trick. Result: two guaranteed tricks, even if that is not obvious.
After a ♥7 lead, West plays the ♥8, which East is forced to overtake. East's next heart goes under South's ♥A, and West throws the ♦8. West still has the ♣7, but the lead can no longer be passed to them. Result: zero tricks.
You can also start with the ♦7: the ♦8 takes the trick at once, and the misère is caught. The ace lead shows an extra technique: how to remove an exit in advance and keep the declarer on lead.
Four cards: building a train
West is playing misère. Their ♣9 can be caught right away: South has the ♣8, East the ♣7. This example also shows how a caught card forces the declarer to keep taking tricks if, before the catch, you clear the defenders' exit suit.
In the previous example we removed an exit from the declarer's hand. Now we remove hearts from both defenders: then West's hearts, which could have been thrown away, turn into a long train.
- South leads the ♥J. West answers with any heart, and East must give up the ♥10. The jack takes the trick. After that the defenders have no hearts, and the declarer still has two.
- South leads the ♣8. West is forced to play the ♣9. East answers with exactly the ♣7: the queen or the ten would steal the trick we want to hand to the declarer.
- West gets the lead and leads either of their two hearts. The defenders throw clubs, so the heart takes the trick. The next heart takes one too, for the same reason: there is nobody to give the lead to.
That is how a "train" happens: after the first trick the declarer cannot give up the lead and takes the following ones.
What if the declarer's cards are closed?
In a normal game the discard is hidden, and the declarer's hand may be unknown. Here all the cards are shown on purpose: we are checking the order of leads. Such analysis does not entitle you to assume that the opponent at your table holds that very nine.
Use the open talon and the cards already played, and note the voids, the suits where the declarer has no cards left. For the catch you have in mind, also check the other possible discard. If the plan only works for one convenient layout, the catch is not guaranteed yet.
One more thing: you don't only catch high cards. In the three-card example the two tricks came from an eight and a seven, while the ace was with a defender. The habit of tracking played cards will also help you in all-pass; more on that in the "Counting hands" section.
How often misère is caught in play
In a slice of SmartPref data we checked in mid-2026, out of one million completed deals at three-player online tables, 37,580 were played as an ordinary misère with the talon. That is 3.6%, about one deal in 27.
| Declarer's result | Deals | Share |
|---|---|---|
| No tricks | 25,711 | 68.4% |
| At least one trick | 11,869 | 31.6% |
Almost one in three of these misères ended with the declarer taking a trick. This is the result of deals actually played, not the probability of catching an arbitrary layout: it mixes different hands, bidding decisions and mistakes on both sides. The probability of being dealt suitable cards has its own article.
Where to practise
SmartPref has a free "Misère of the day": an open layout in which you try to catch a potentially catchable misère while a bot tries to avoid tricks. You get three attempts at each daily puzzle, and the most successful players make the leaderboard. Taking part in "Misère of the day" is completely free.
The puzzle's target may be more than one trick. In our sample of 78,333 completed or expired puzzles with at least one saved attempt, players reached the target on the first try 50.7% of the time. The cards are open, yet you still have to think: the average solving time is about three minutes.
In general, when catching a misère, decide before the play starts which card or cards you are catching, and which ones you need to keep to pass the lead without letting the declarer escape. It is also useful to write down an interesting misère you meet in a game and later replay it in different ways, both as the declarer and as the defenders, to see how well it was played the first time.
Bonus: Kovalevskaya's misère
In a full deal, catching a misère sometimes means allowing for different ways the play can go. As long as there are two possible targets, the defenders do well to keep both and make the declarer choose a discard first.
This layout is known as "Sofia Kovalevskaya's misère". The ♣A and ♣K are in the discard. You need to make West take at least one trick. The catch relies on East choosing their discard after the declarer.
The target can be the ♣8 or a heart. The obstacle is that East holds high cards in both suits. One of them has to be cleared, but the choice of lead only needs to be made after West discards.
- South leads the ♦K. West follows with a diamond, and East takes with their only diamond, the ♦A. The lead passes to East.
- East returns the lead with the ♥10 under South's ♥J. West must follow with a heart. South keeps the ♥7 for the catch later; a lead of a high heart by East would not pass the lead to partner.
- South plays the ♦Q and ♦J. West gives up their last two diamonds, and East throws the ♠A and ♠K. Now South's two spades will become leads on which East can throw other suits. East keeps the clubs and hearts for now.
- South plays the last diamond, the ♦10. West has to choose a discard before East. That is exactly what we were after: the defender can match their discard to the card already thrown.
| West's discard on the ♦10 | What East does |
|---|---|
| ♣8 | Throws one heart, then two more on South's ♠Q and ♠J. South leads the ♥7 under West's remaining heart. |
| The last heart | Throws one club, then two more on South's spades. South leads the ♣7 under the ♣8. |
| Any spade | Clears the clubs the same way: one discard on the diamond, two more on the spades. South catches the ♣8 with a ♣7 lead. |
Whatever West discards, the defenders keep a target: either the eight of clubs or a heart. The prepared spades give East time to get rid of the cards that stood in the way of the catch.
If East starts throwing clubs instead of spades, they will still hold a club by the decisive diamond, and West will be able to get rid of the ♣8. Throwing the high spades frees South's future leads and lets you postpone choosing the suit to catch. That is the point of the preparation.
Bonus: Lasker's misère
Another squeeze puzzle: the defenders force the declarer to choose a discard, then catch the suit that was kept. This is the full version of the three-card puzzle we went through above. The ♥K and ♥Q are in the discard. Here too you need to catch the misère by matching your discards to West's answer.
South has the ♦7 and ♥7, but as long as East holds the high diamonds and hearts, they will intercept the catch. For discards, South has four spades and two clubs.
- South plays the ♠A, ♠K, ♠J. On the ace East gives up their only spade, the ♠Q, then throws the ♣K and ♣Q. Those clubs would stop South's ten from taking tricks: removing them sets up two more leads for discards. West must follow in spades for now.
- South leads the ♠10. West has no spades left and has to choose a discard. East plays after West and decides which suit to clear.
- Say West throws a club, for example the ♣J. East throws the ♦K. The diamond catch is still on: West still has the ♦9 and ♦8.
- South plays the ♣A and ♣10, and East throws the ♦Q and ♦J. West gives up two more clubs and keeps one. It matters that East's clubs were removed in advance: otherwise East would beat the ten and the lead would leave the right hand.
- South plays the ♦A. West plays the ♦9, East their last diamond, the ♦10. Now East has only hearts left, and West has the ♣7, ♦8 and ♥8.
- This is now the familiar three-card ending: the ♥A removes the heart exit, the ♦7 passes the lead to the ♦8, and the misère is caught. West's last club takes a trick too: the lead stays with West.
If West throws the ♥8 on the fourth spade, East clears the diamonds the same way. After the ♦A, South can lead the ♦7 straight away under West's remaining diamond. It takes the trick.
If West throws a diamond, East throws all three hearts instead of diamonds: one on the last spade, two on the clubs. South cashes the remaining diamond with the ace and leads the ♥7. East can no longer overtake, and West's ♥8 takes the trick.
Why not throw East's diamonds right away on the second and third spade leads? Then the ♣K and ♣Q would stay in East's hand and cover South's ♣10. There would not be enough leads to prepare the catch. First remove the cards that keep your partner from leading, then the cards in the chosen suit.