May 2012 - 44

Upgrading Your Game

Lynn Berg
lberg@cfl.rr.com

Old wives' tales: Things I
learned at my mother's knee
As an old wife myself (well, a
widow, actually), I'm going to address
some popular bridge sayings and
beliefs. Are they true? When are they
true? Let's dispense with a few old
ideas that are just plain wrong.
Notrump is harder to play than a
suit contract.
So wrong! What can be easier than
counting your winners and looking for
more, and the high card of the suit led
wins the trick? As opposed to counting your losers and looking for ways
to eliminate them, and the high card
of the suit led wins the trick except
when there's a trump played on the
trick, then the high trump wins? You
can see why I think notrump is easier.
Always lead the highest card you
have in partner's suit.
Dummy
42
You
Partner
Q86
 K 10 9 5 3
AJ7
Your partner has bid spades and
44 Bridge Bulletin May 2012

the opponents are playing 1NT. If
you lead the queen, declarer gets two
tricks in the suit, one undeserved. If
you lead low, partner's king forces the
ace. When partner gets back in, he
can lead the 10 and use your queen to
finesse declarer's jack. If declarer had
ducked, partner could continue with
the 10 and accomplish the same trap
for the jack.
Sure, still lead high with a doubleton in partner's suit, but leading low
from three or more not headed by a
sequence will give partner a better
count on the suit and could deprive
declarer of an extra trick. The exception to leading low with more than
two occurs in suit defense: Don't lead
away from the ace.
My first discard is the suit I want
you to lead, partner.
The opponents are playing a
notrump contract. Your hand is:
K Q J 5 4 3 2 Q 10 8 7 6 4
You lead the 7. Declarer takes
partner's jack with the king and starts
running his five-card club suit. Do you
really want to discard a spade? It's got
to be better to make a negative discard when you can't afford to spend
a good card to make your point. Your
partner should be able to figure it out:
you've led diamonds, you don't have
clubs and you don't like hearts. Hmm,
what could you be saving?
Second-hand low, third-hand high.
Especially on the opening lead, but
often later in the hand as well, this
is good advice. Of course if you're
playing a notrump contract and you're
looking at three low cards facing K-x
in dummy, you might as well play the

king. Not so in suit play. It's unlikely
that the opening lead has been away
from an ace, so play low. Third hand
doesn't know you don't have the
queen or jack, so he might just play
his ace (and if he has A-Q-J, what
you play is purely academic). Even
if your RHO does have the A-Q-J,
he can't cash the ace without setting
up your king. Be careful about thirdhand high when you should be playing
third-hand not so high:
 K J 9 5 (Dummy)
 A Q 10 6 (You)
I've seen many a careless play
in this situation, when a moment's
thought would have saved a trick.
Cover an honor with an honor.
True when a single honor is led, like
the queen from Q-x-x on the dummy.
Not true if the dummy has Q-J-x.
It's usually right to cover the last of
touching honors. In notrump, if your
honor is the ace, you may choose to
duck to disrupt declarer's communication.
But listen to the bidding. The auction was 1-4, so you are pretty
sure they have a 10-card fit. The dummy indeed turns up with Q-x-x-x-x.
Declarer leads the queen. You have
K-x. Should you cover? Think about
it. If declarer has A-J-x-x-x, nothing
you do matters, since partner has only
a small singleton at most. But what if
the actual layout is:
	 	
Partner
A

Dummy
Qxxxx
 J 10 x x x

You
Kx

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of May 2012
