Other Defensive Rules

There are lots of rules, but these are important basic rules of defensive play, in addition to those on on Leads, Counting, Signals and Visualization.

Play the card you are known to have.

• If everyone at the table knows you have the©K, play the ©K. If declarer leads the ¨ Q with the ¨Ace on the board, play your ¨ King. Finesses are dealt by the Card Gods, whom you can blame for everything having to do with distribution. The right defensive play is usually to 'cover an honor with an honor', as you may set up the 10 x x in your partner's hand. If not, declarer was going to get all the tricks in that suit anyhow: you haven't given away anything.

 

Keep length with dummy's long suit

• In the above example above, either E/W hand with 4 Clubs to the §Q or §9 or higher, should not sluff any Clubs. The danger is that declarer may set up dummy's 4th Club as the 10th trick. Even apparently weak suits such as §9xxx can be dangerous. Make sure the declarer sluffs a Club in dummy before you, East, sluff a Club.

 

When discarding, don't give Declarer information on any suit not played

• Especially, don't sluff at random. Sluff cards the declarer knows you have. Don't sluff in every suit -- that confuses your partner. Don't sluff cards in a new suit because declarer is counting every card in every suit, just as you do when you are declarer.

(c) Robert D. McConnell, 1998  All Rights Reserved