Bridge

HERE is another situation where it is wrong to cover an honour with an honour. South opened 1H, and made a jump rebid over partner's 1S response. North now knew of a 6-2 heart fit and could not be sure that partner had any spades, so he simply raised to game.

West led the king of clubs. East signalled an even number and West switched smartly to a trump to prevent club ruffs in dummy.

South won the queen and led the queen of spades. If East covers declarer takes the ace, draws trump, and discards all his losers on dummy's long suit, making twelve tricks. Not terribly important at some forms of scoring, but in a match pointed duplicate losing 680 on the board is a disaster.

See the difference if East does not cover. The queen of spades scores, and declarer wins the second spade with the ace.

He might try a club now, hoping to ruff his third club in dummy, but whichever defender wins plays a second trump.

Declarer crosses to the king of diamonds to ruff a spade, establishing the suit, but he has no entry to dummy to run it and has to lose three clubs after all. -620 is a far better score for East-West.

There is no point in covering when dummy has such a long suit. If declarer has the ace you make life easy for him; and if partner has the ace it does not matter which of you wins the trick.