“Cover Story”, or “The king is dead, long live the ten or nine”. Why do so many players have difficulty with understanding and implementing the teaching of “cover an honour with an honour”? A simple enough suggestion and one that works nine times out of ten and also works when you are wise enough to ignore it the tenth time. This one is about the nine out of ten times that was seemingly ignored by nine out of ten defenders sitting in the North seat.
Board 26 from Monday 20/07/20
Dealer E All Vul
Most Easts ended up in either 2C or 3C, though one West was in 2NT. I will talk about the club contracts first. Top defence will limit declarer to eight tricks but most made ten! That happened because the defenders in the North did not know when to cover an honour. Declarer led the jack from dummy and North played ‘second hand low’, an awful rule if misused. It should not be a difficult process for North to see what will happen if North plays low. The jack will hold and another club will then go to declarer’s queen. The king will not take a trick. So, because the king will be dead anyway, North should cover. Covering can not possibly cost, and as it happens the result is that North’s nine is promoted to a trick.
Things were even worse at the table where one West somehow bid to 2NT. North made the inspired lead of the queen of spades, but fell from grace when he failed to cover dummy’s jack of clubs at trick two, which gave declarer nine tricks and a bottom board for NS, -150 for NS against all the poorly defended -130s. For any NS pair that knew how to defend, there was 80+% in the offing.
Q8
8652
A764
K95