Bridge

THERE is a second, less well known, rule to do with covering honours: do not cover the first of touching honours, wait to cover the second. This is a classic example.

After the simple limit raise auction to 4H, West cashed his top clubs, then exited safely with a trump. Declarer finessed, losing to East's king, and a trump was returned. Declarer drew the last trump, ruffed dummy's last club, and cashed three diamonds, ending in dummy to reach the position shown to the right.

Declarer had already lost three tricks. He led the queen of spades from dummy, and East covered with the king. Declarer won the ace and led low to dummy's nine, then cashed the jack to make the contract. See what happens if East does not cover? The queen scores, but declarer is stuck. If he plays the jack next, East covers to promote partner's ten into a winner; if he plays the nine, East plays low again, preserving his king to beat the jack next time.

What should West do if he has the doubleton king? With K10 doubleton he must cover and hope declarer will finesse. With Kx he should perhaps duck and hope for a misguess; but this is a double-bluff where declarer may imagine that a good player would cover only if holding the ten, and try to drop it.