Given the poor contract South finds himself in, I suppose there is nothing to lose with the swindle attempt, but it seems to me that as West, I should smell a very large rat sitting to my right.

After all, my partner put up the JC denying the queen on the first trick. I think he would be a little peeved with me if I took South’s word for it over his!

Since when does J deny the Q?

Hi Jeff S,

For what it is worth, I certainly agree with Mike, although since you have been obviously playing, that your 3rd seat partner should play the higher of equals (QJ) if he has them.

Mike is correct in that it is customary (mandatory) for your partner (3rd seat player) to play his highest one unless he has equals (QJ) then the lowest of the two or if holding QJ10 then to play the ten.

Chalk this up to a learning experience and thanks for writing.

So chalked, even if I am not 100% sure I understand the reasoning.

If it is customary, then I assume that, on balance, the pluses outweigh the minuses, so that the aids to defensive communication (or declarer confusion?) more than make up for situations like this one where it sets the defenders up to be nicely hustled.

Clearly, I’ve still got a lot to learn – and I have one question to start: Does playing from the top in most cases put a partnership at a material disadvantage over one that habitually plays from the middle or bottom?

There are obviously situations for both methods where you may deem it profitable to stray from your normal habit in order to befuddle declarer while not materially affecting your partner’s read – ie, because the way the cards lie, it doesn’t matter if your partner understands what is going on. But is the top-down method noticeably weaker than the other?

Thanks in advance for wading through this rather long response.

One last question: if the 5C was a helping hand, what SHOULD West have led here? Thanks again!

Jeff S –

I am not the expert, but I see what might be some communication confusion here.

Standard practice is generally to LEAD the highest of two touching honors (like K from KQ).

Standard practice when following suit is to play the LOWEST of two touching honors (like Q from KQ).

Hi Jeff S,

As Jim2 has stated clearly, the standard practice in the entire bridge world is to do as he suggests and for logical reasons.

Using the Aces hand as an example, when partner plays the queen he denies holding the Jack, but could hold the king. Since his partner holds the king and his partner’s jack has driven out the ace, the opening leader, by positive inference can usually rely on what was played at trick one to confidently play partner for the theoretical queen, or else why didn’t the declarer win the first trick with it. It, of course, was not true on this hand because of the diabolical and brilliant play by declarer of the ace, trying to mislead the defense in case of the trump finesse being wrong.

Yes, this is a special column hand, but top of the world players are versatile and imaginative enough to forsee this outcome. It really happens every now and then, perhaps once out of every 300 hands one plays or defends, but hats should be doffed to the declarer who knelt (instead of rose) to the occasion.

To some readers their comment would be, this hand is just too unrealistic and no one should expect his readers to understand why such a play was made. To that I would say, Fie on that notion and here is an example which all of us can aspire to do.

Traditionally learning bridge is done in spurts, wherein we go for certain periods at perhaps our status quo and all of a sudden the game gets easier as we learn to cope with it. After several of those delightful spurts we then are lured into playing tournament bridge at our local club and presto, we magically have found a hobby which will last for a lifetime and keep our minds sharp for many years after retirement.

Good luck to all who have already experieced it and to those who are looking forward to doing it for the first time.