Blum on Bridge The best offense is a good defense
	No aspect of the game is more important and less understood than defending a hand at bridge. Playing party bridge, more often than not, when the hand has been completed and the cards shuffled for the next deal lost forever will be how the contract could have been held one more trick. At duplicate when comparing scores with others in the field it is almost always assumed that declarer was responsible for either making or losing that extra trick. Probably nothing could be further from the truth. Whereas declarer play in many instances is fairly standard, excellent defense is rare. For me, when my Tuesday afternoon partner Mary Mason and I hold the declarer to one less trick than anyone else in the room I just feel great! The expression "2nd hand low" holds true much of the time but there are extremely important exceptions. One of these is when and when not to cover an honor. Assume dummy holds QJ9 and plays the queen. You hold K52, do not cover the first honor. Wait until the jack is played and cover it. Had you covered the first honor, declarer would win the ace and perhaps finesse the nine against your partner's ten. By covering the second honor you deny declarer the finesse. Even if the nine weren't in dummy it is still best to cover the last honor. Assume you are 2nd hand with the same holding, but declarer is on lead and plays the queen. All you can see is dummy's ace plus two spot cards. Use your imagination and think, "Declarer would never lead the queen unless he also has the jack even if I can't see it." Again, do not cover the first honor. Suppose you are to dummy's left and you see KQJ of a suit in which you hold the ace. Declarer is on lead and plays a card in another suit - in which he has another entry - to get to dummy. He now plays the king from his KQJ. What has happened? Should you cover with your ace? Because he got to dummy in a side suit he must be void in the KQJ suit; otherwise he would have led that suit. Do not cover because declarer will ruff and go back to dummy, then discard losers on the two remaining honors. By not covering, declarer may think your partner has the ace and will ruff his otherwise sure winner instead of sluffing a loser. Most of the time it is right to cover a single honor from dummy. Dummy holds Q54; you hold K32. Cover the queen as declarer might have something like AJ96. Covering sets up partner's 10 from 1087. However, if you count ten cards between declarer and dummy and you hold K3 it is not right to cover when the queen is played from dummy's Q654. Perhaps the partner holds a stiff ace. I often state aces are meant to take honors not spot cards. When holding A53 it is usually best to "smoothly" play 2nd hand low when dummy leads a small card. There is what should be an obvious exception to even this. Assume the contract is 3NT and partner leads the spade 6. Dummy has 108 and you the J73. On your jack declarer wins the king. He immediately plays a heart winning with dummy's king. At trick three he plays a small diamond from K964. You hold A108. Should you play low or win the ace? Why? You must win the trick. Using the "Rule of Eleven" on partner's opening spade lead, subtract the number on his spot card, six, from eleven to obtain the number of cards higher than six that exist in the three hands other than your partner's. The answer is, of course, five. You can see both dummy's 108 and your J7. This means declarer began with one card higher than the six and that king already has been played. Therefore, your partner must still hold the AQ9 plus possibly another spot card. If partner did begin with this holding, winning the diamond ace and playing a spade will set the contract. Let's go back to an expression I used earlier, playing smoothly. I'll bet I tell you readers to anticipate what the declarer has planned in regard to your holding at least a half dozen times a year. Well, here goes old redundant me again. Please, please when you hold a certain card in your hand, not unlike what we've been discussing, prepare yourself for the play you know is coming so you can duck smoothly so as not to give that wary declarer a clue about your holding. It is the most deceptive defensive play in the game of bridge.