[keithhus]

Would appreciate guidance.
I am aware of the mantra, "2nd hand plays Low" but was also told that if I can take the trick, I should. I have recently been criticised by 2 partners, because if I had not taken the trick, we would have gained an extra trick. - I.e. I have drawn high card /singleton, from my partner. I appreciate a lot depends on specific circumstances and recent experience has really answered my question, but in general, should I now cease from my approach of taking trick if I can. Thank you.

[diana_eva]

 keithhus, on 2015-February-05, 06:37, said:

Would appreciate guidance.
I am aware of the mantra, "2nd hand plays Low" but was also told that if I can take the trick, I should. I have recently been criticised by 2 partners, because if I had not taken the trick, we would have gained an extra trick. - I.e. I have drawn high card /singleton, from my partner. I appreciate a lot depends on specific circumstances and recent experience has really answered my question, but in general, should I now cease from my approach of taking trick if I can. Thank you.

This is a good starting point (scroll down to part B "Second Hand Plays Low ", it shows a few examples of where it is right to duck and where it is right to jump up and take your trick):
http://webutil.bridg...tch.php?id=2377

[keithhus]

 diana_eva, on 2015-February-05, 06:50, said:

This is a good starting point (scroll down to part B "Second Hand Plays Low ", it shows a few examples of where it is right to duck and where it is right to jump up and take your trick):
http://webutil.bridg...tch.php?id=2377

Thank you, this looks very helpful.

[billw55]

 keithhus, on 2015-February-05, 06:37, said:

I am aware of the mantra, "2nd hand plays Low" but was also told that if I can take the trick, I should.

It can be a complicated subject. But this bit of advice in particular is wrong. There are many cases where refusing to win a trick right now will gain tricks later. Not every time - but many.

[Stephen Tu]

 keithhus, on 2015-February-05, 06:37, said:

Would appreciate guidance.
I am aware of the mantra, "2nd hand plays Low" but was also told that if I can take the trick, I should. I have recently been criticised by 2 partners, because if I had not taken the trick, we would have gained an extra trick. - I.e. I have drawn high card /singleton, from my partner. I appreciate a lot depends on specific circumstances and recent experience has really answered my question, but in general, should I now cease from my approach of taking trick if I can. Thank you.

Take a look into the excellent book by Bill Root, "How to Defend a Bridge Hand". It has a rather comprehensive chapter on 2nd hand play which shows most of the relevant suit combinations and explains the issues. It is a very good book in general for players of your level, and will make you a lot better after you digest its contents, which will take some time.

Definitely you should not hold a "take the trick if you can" mentality, that is wrong way more often than it is right in 2nd chair. The main reasons playing low is usually right are:
- if you play high, you will usually capture air, low cards from declarer. Generally you will take more tricks by the time the hand is over if your high cards are capturing declarer's high cards
- playing low often relieves declarer of a guess of what relevant honor you may or may not hold, and gives him a chance to choose wrongly.

Common times to play high second hand:
- declarer leads an honor, and covering can promote a lower honor/spot in your or partner's hand. But avoid covering if you think declarer has say a two-way guess for a Q or J, and situations where declarer has a huge trump fit and covering might crash partner's stiff honor or declarer has a guess between hook/drop. Also, if declarer is leading from multiple touching honors usually you want to try cover the last of them, not the first one. This is the "cover an honor with an honor" guideline (which like many bridge guidelines is situation dependent and not 100%).
- the rest of the hand suggests that if you don't grab your trick in the suit now, you may never get it (e.g. suit contract, dummy has Qx in a side suit, declarer leads low to Q and you have K, if declarer has ace he will ruff the third round).
- previous play + dummy suggests there is some urgency in taking this trick immediately so that you can do something specific: e.g. you have ace of trumps, are pretty sure partner led a stiff, you want to give him as many ruffs as possible. Or in 3 notrump you might want to take this trick and run a suit to set declarer while if you duck declarer steals his 9th trick. Or in notrump you may need to play high to lead partner's suit again to drive out declarer's remaining stopper while partner still has the remaining stopper in declarer's suit (e.g. you have Kxx in suit, x left in partner's led suit, you play high and hope K wins, that partner has Ax, and set up the led suit, then partner can run suit when in with the ace. If you duck, and partner wins the trick and sets up his suit, you don't have any left to return when in with the K)
- entryless dummy except for one suit the declarer is trying to run, sometimes you play high to force declarer to take the ace in dummy, then you hope your partner can hold up with the last honor behind and kill the suit, rather than letting partner win first trick and then declarer runs suit with 2nd finesse.

Everything is situation dependent on your hand, dummy, the auction, the previous cards played, partner's signaling. Read some good defense books that teach you how to combine this information to choose the right action.

[keithhus]

 billw55, on 2015-February-05, 07:49, said:

It can be a complicated subject. But this bit of advice in particular is wrong. There are many cases where refusing to win a trick right now will gain tricks later. Not every time - but many.

Thank you for your reply, appreciated.

[keithhus]

 Stephen Tu, on 2015-February-05, 07:54, said:

Take a look into the excellent book by Bill Root, "How to Defend a Bridge Hand". It has a rather comprehensive chapter on 2nd hand play which shows most of the relevant suit combinations and explains the issues. It is a very good book in general for players of your level, and will make you a lot better after you digest its contents, which will take some time.

Definitely you should not hold a "take the trick if you can" mentality, that is wrong way more often than it is right in 2nd chair. The main reasons playing low is usually right are:
- if you play high, you will usually capture air, low cards from declarer. Generally you will take more tricks by the time the hand is over if your high cards are capturing declarer's high cards
- playing low often relieves declarer of a guess of what relevant honor you may or may not hold, and gives him a chance to choose wrongly.

Common times to play high second hand:
- declarer leads an honor, and covering can promote a lower honor/spot in your or partner's hand. But avoid covering if you think declarer has say a two-way guess for a Q or J, and situations where declarer has a huge trump fit and covering might crash partner's stiff honor or declarer has a guess between hook/drop. Also, if declarer is leading from multiple touching honors usually you want to try cover the last of them, not the first one. This is the "cover an honor with an honor" guideline (which like many bridge guidelines is situation dependent and not 100%).
- the rest of the hand suggests that if you don't grab your trick in the suit now, you may never get it (e.g. suit contract, dummy has Qx in a side suit, declarer leads low to Q and you have K, if declarer has ace he will ruff the third round).
- previous play + dummy suggests there is some urgency in taking this trick immediately so that you can do something specific: e.g. you have ace of trumps, are pretty sure partner led a stiff, you want to give him as many ruffs as possible. Or in 3 notrump you might want to take this trick and run a suit to set declarer while if you duck declarer steals his 9th trick. Or in notrump you may need to play high to lead partner's suit again to drive out declarer's remaining stopper while partner still has the remaining stopper in declarer's suit (e.g. you have Kxx in suit, x left in partner's led suit, you play high and hope K wins, that partner has Ax, and set up the led suit, then partner can run suit when in with the ace. If you duck, and partner wins the trick and sets up his suit, you don't have any left to return when in with the K)
- entryless dummy except for one suit the declarer is trying to run, sometimes you play high to force declarer to take the ace in dummy, then you hope your partner can hold up with the last honor behind and kill the suit, rather than letting partner win first trick and then declarer runs suit with 2nd finesse.

Everything is situation dependent on your hand, dummy, the auction, the previous cards played, partner's signaling. Read some good defense books that teach you how to combine this information to choose the right action.

[keithhus]

stephen, thank you for taking the trouble to give me such a comprehensive reply, very helpful indeed.

[keithhus]

 billw55, on 2015-February-05, 07:49, said:

It can be a complicated subject. But this bit of advice in particular is wrong. There are many cases where refusing to win a trick right now will gain tricks later. Not every time - but many.

Thank you for your reply, appreciated.

[gwnn]

Hi Keith,

In suit contracts, you often need to play high when dummy has two cards and you have two honors, either KQ(...) or AK(...). This is called 'splitting' your honours and it avoids declarer getting rid of a loser a loser he was not entitled to get rid of (imagine him having AJxx or QJxx in the two respective cases). This assumed that dummy was on lead.

[keithhus]

 gwnn, on 2015-February-05, 11:40, said:

Hi Keith,

In suit contracts, you often need to play high when dummy has two cards and you have two honors, either KQ(...) or AK(...). This is called 'splitting' your honours and it avoids declarer getting rid of a loser a loser he was not entitled to get rid of (imagine him having AJxx or QJxx in the two respective cases). This assumed that dummy was on lead.

Thank you for your comments, appreciated.

[mikeh]

One point that all players should appreciate is the need to plan ahead as defender, especially sitting in front of a dummy that holds, say, KJxx in a suit.

You hold the A, but not the Queen, and at some point declarer leads low towards dummy. Good declarers will often make this play very early, unless they want to try to work out the lie of this suit from the lie of other suits.

You will likely have learned that it is usually right to duck, but most players can't do this smoothly. Most players at least flinch, especially if the card is played early, and that gives the show away.

One way to avoid this is to develop the habit at trick one of not turning your card over, no matter how quickly the first trick was played, until you'd had a chance to study dummy and think a bit. It is no use only doing this when a holding like KJx appears in dummy and you have the A, since pretty soon your opps are going to figure this out, if only unconsciously.

Many good declarers take their time at trick one anyway, and you can use that time yourself. However, if the first trick was played quickly, ask declarer to keep the cards up while you think about the hand. Do this every time and you won't be giving anything away, to the opps or to partner. This needn't take more than a few seconds.

Be alert for holdings such as KJxx or KQxxx on your left, especially if you hold Axx or better, and be ready to play low smoothly (unless you have figured out that you need to win the trick). Most declarers, especially those that recognize that you are not (yet) an expert, will assume that you don't have the Ace. Even the less-skilled declarers won't go wrong with KJx if you flinch then play low.

of course, flinching when you hold Qxxx instead of Axxx will often gain a trick......and a reputation that you really don't want to have

[kuhchung]

By the way keithhus, you are very courteous, but there is no need to quote every individual response and to thank everybody one at a time

[diana_eva]

 kuhchung, on 2015-February-05, 17:05, said:

By the way keithhus, you are very courteous, but there is no need to quote every individual response and to thank everybody one at a time

BBF have a scary effect on people

[kuhchung]

When he gets more advanced, I'll teach him the proper way to flame others

[fourdad]

Simple place to start is to consider taking your trick in a distribution hand and to conserve it in an evenly distributed hand.

[billw55]

 Stephen Tu, on 2015-February-05, 07:54, said:

Take a look into the excellent book by Bill Root, "How to Defend a Bridge Hand".

The best single piece of advice in this thread IMO.

[kuhchung]

 billw55, on 2015-February-06, 06:56, said:

The best single piece of advice in this thread IMO.

I'm insulted.