People playing contract bridge: Play the Honor From the Short Hand First

Play the Honor From the Short Hand First

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The Short Hand example 1

  Dummy
♦ Q 4  

  You
♦ A K 3 

With only two diamond cards in the dummy, it’s important to plan carefully when playing your three high cards. To ensure smooth play and avoid complications, start by playing the honor from the shorter hand first.

Which hand is short?

When you play the honor from the shorter hand first, you should play lower cards from the opposite hand on that trick. Avoid playing two high cards on the same trick, as this is known as “crashing” your honors, which is not ideal. If you crash two of your honors, you’ll end up with only two tricks instead of the three you could have gained from your high cards.

Which card do you play first from your hand?

You will win three diamond tricks. The ♦Q wins the first trick. Then you lead dummy’s spot card and win the second trick in your hand. With the lead in your hand, you can continue with your third diamond master.

Example 1 (repeated)

  Dummy
♦ Q 4 


  You
♦ A K 3  

Let’s explore what can go wrong if you don’t play the honor from the shorter hand first. (Remember: “The long hand is the wrong hand”—a rhyme that may help you keep this in mind.)

Imagine you start by leading the honors from the longer hand first. When you play the ♦A, you follow suit with the dummy’s low card. On the next trick, your ♦K will end up crashing with dummy’s ♦Q, forcing you to play the ♦Q under the ♦K. Unfortunately, this leaves you with only two tricks instead of the three you could have gained from your high cards.

To avoid these issues, play the honor from the shorter hand first.

For example, you might play the ♦A first, following suit with dummy’s ♦4, and then lead the ♦3 from your hand to dummy’s ♦Q. While the ♦Q wins the trick, the dummy will no longer have any diamonds, meaning you’d need to find a way to transfer the lead back to your hand to cash your third diamond winner. This could work if you have another in-hand winner in a different suit, but it adds unnecessary complexity. By starting with the honor from the shorter hand, you can avoid this situation entirely and play more efficiently.

Example 2

  Dummy
♣ Q J 7 4  

  You
♣ A K 3  

This time it’s your hand that is “short,” having only three cards while dummy has four.

Which honors will win the first two tricks?

Example 3

  Dummy
♥ A Q 4  

  You
♥ K J 8  

You have the top four hearts. How many heart winners do you have?

Yikes! With only three hearts in each hand, you cannot lead hearts more than three times. So you can only win three tricks in this suit no matter how many master cards you have.

And besides, what made you think you could win five tricks with only four masters?

Spot Cards Matter

Example 4

  Dummy
♥ A Q 4  

  You
♥ K J 8 2  

Let’s start with the cards from the previous example, and give your hand the ♥2. Now we have a short hand and a long hand.

Which card do you play first from your hand?

How many heart tricks will you win?

Example 5

  Dummy
♥ A Q 4 2  

  You
♥ K J 8  

Let’s move the ♥2 into the dummy, and see if this changes anything.

Which card do you play first from your hand?

How many heart tricks will you win this time?

Example 6

  Dummy
♠ A Q 4 2  


  You
♠ K J  

You hold the four highest spades, along with two low cards in the dummy to pair with the two honors in your hand. However, there’s a challenge: after cashing your ♠K and ♠J, you’ll have no low card in your hand to lead to dummy’s ♠A and ♠Q.

If dummy has a winner in another suit, you could use that winner to transfer the lead to dummy and cash the remaining high spades. But what happens if dummy has no other winners?

In that case, you may have to settle for winning only three spade tricks. Your opponents are unlikely to lead spades for you, as they can clearly see the powerful spades sitting in dummy, ready to win tricks. Instead, they’ll shift to other suits, leaving your remaining spade winners stranded.

Do you see a way to improve on this two-winner result?

Like this…

Example 7

  Dummy
♠ A Q 6 2  


  You
♠ K (J)  

Imagine your ♠J is a low card. How would you play the spades in that case?

Start by winning the ♠K (playing the high card from the shorter hand first), then lead your remaining “low card” (pretending the ♠J is a low card). Win the trick in the dummy by overtaking the ♠J with a higher honor.

In this scenario, you’re deliberately using the ♠J together with an honor from the dummy to position the lead in the dummy for the next trick. While this means you’ll forgo winning all four spade tricks, you’ll at least secure three tricks instead of just two.

When you don’t have the spot cards you need for leading to remaining honors in the opposite hand, this is called a “blocked” suit. Go to the next topic:

Blocked Suits

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