D13 HOLD UP OR DUCKING PLAYS

Declarer's Hold up Plays

a) Damage Limitations Hold Ups in No Trumps

When playing no trump contracts, the defenders usually attack your weak suit. Assume you are playing in 3 no trumps with no opposition bidding and they lead a spade.

If you have to lose the lead (e.g. to an opposing ace) to set up sufficient tricks to fulfil your contract, they will clearly make quite a few spades when they get in. But West might have 5 or 6 spades and East only three or two. Hold off your ªA until the third round. If East then gets in with the outstanding ace, then maybe East has no spades to lead back. If West had the ace then bad luck!

These hold up situations with a single stopper are quite common. Less easy to see are positions where you have a double stopper and need to let the opposition in twice.

Duck the first spade. East might have only 2 and be the first defender to win a trick in which case he might have no spades left to lead.

b) The 'Bath Coup'

No this is not an ice cream but an old fashioned name for a specific ducking play.

If you play low from both hands, West cannot profitably continue this suit from his side without conceding 2 tricks to both Ace and Jack.

c) Entry Preserving Plays

If you have to lose a trick or two in a suit to set up 'long' cards as winners, then it may be advantageous to lose a trick first to preserve entries to the long cards, e.g you are playing in no trumps and you need 4 tricks from the diamond suit.

If the suit breaks 3/2, this combination plays for only one loser. If you bash out ¨K, ¨A and lose a third, you will normally be left with 2 winners in dummy, but can you get over there?!, Instead, just play a low card from both hands on the first trick. Then play ¨K from the 'short' hand then ¨A and you are already in the right hand to win the 4th and 5th diamonds Elegant!.

d) To maintain control in the trump suit

If you have a poor quality trump suit and still need to draw trumps, it is sometime wise to lose a trump trick early. If you were playing a spade contract, for instance with;

you should duck the first trick, play the ace on the second and probably leave the opposition's winning trump(s) outstanding. The disadvantage of playing Ace and then another is that the opposition may draw a third trump from both hands or take out all your trumps when 4/1 !

Defender's Hold up Play

e) Entry Destruction Plays

If Dummy has a long suit in a no trump contract and you have a winner, hold up that winner until you believe declarer is exhausted of his cards in that suit. He may then have no entries to dummy to take the 'long' winners or he may have to use another suit to get to dummy to your advantage. Partner should help with counting the cards in the long suit, hi-lo with 2 cards.

e.g Declarer leads the ¨ 2 up to dummy and partner plays the 3¨

Partner probably has 3 cards since he didn't hi-lo. This means that declarer also has 3 small cards. Duck 2 diamonds, therefore, and when you win the third with the ¨ A, declarer will have none left to get back to dummy.

Experienced players usually agree to play hi-lo with 4 cards or 2 especially against no trumps. Of course partner may not know if you actually have 4 or 2 but it can often be worked out from the rest of the hand and the bidding may give a clue.

f) Entry Preserving Plays

These situations are identical to declarer's in c) above if you can read the situation! e.g You are West and you lead ¨ 4 against their No trump contract and you see;

Dummy plays the ¨ 10, East, your partner plays ¨A and returns the ¨ 6. You can see that North has a definite stopper. If you have no certain entry in another suit yourself, you should duck this trick witholding your ¨K. Maybe partner will get in later and return a third diamond if the cards are distributed;

g) Deceptive Plays

There are many situations in bridge when you can legitimately confuse declarer as to the location of defender's high cards by ducking. You usually need to plan in advance and when the time comes the low card must be played smoothly, otherwise you will not fool anyone! I give one common example.

Assume clubs are trumps. Declarer leads a small card from hand up to §K Q 10 3 in dummy. Dummy plays the §K. As East in 4th seat with A x or A x x, you should duck. Declarer may have a problem. From his point of view, there are 2 normal card layouts;

If you win the first trick, declarer will assume layout i) and surely finesse against partner's Jack next time to make 3 tricks. If you had played low on the first trick, however, then declarer might play for layout ii) when a second club to the Queen would be the winning line. He will get a rude shock when you win the ace and partner's jack wins a second trick for your side.