All defenders know that in most situations when you are playing second to a trick you usually play second hand low. Similarly, when you are the declarer the most common instruction you give to the dummy (who is playing second to the opening trick) is usually “play low”.
The best strategy in most hands is to let the opponent’s lead come round to your own hand to try and win the trick with a lower card in your own hand.
When you are the declarer you enjoy the advantage of playing last to the first trick and you may be able to win the first trick cheaply in your hand.
Example: Declarer ♠Q102 Dummy ♠A86
You are west and the declarer in 4♥. North leads ♠3. Play the ♠6 from the dummy and run the lead around to your hand, hoping to win ♠10 or ♠Q.
Even when you have very little chance of winning in your own hand you should usually play low from the dummy.
The defender playing third to the trick may well play a low card you can take or may instead play an unnecessarily high card that will later promote one of your honours into a trick.
Example: Declarer ♠742 Dummy ♠AJ5
You are west and the declarer in 4♥. North leads ♠3. Play ♠5 from the dummy. You may lose this trick to south’s ♠K, however you can later finesse north to win both the dummy’s ♠J and ♠A.
It is especially important to play second hand low when you have two or three honours in the suit led, divided between the declarer’s and dummy’s hands.
Example: Declarer ♠A102 Dummy ♠J85
You are west and the declarer in 4♥. North leads ♠3. Play ♠5 from the dummy to guarantee two tricks in spades.
If south now plays ♠K you win with ♠A. Later your opponents may win ♠10 with ♠Q, but you will then win ♠J.
Note that if you play ♠J to the first trick you will still have to play ♠A on south’s ♠K. Your ♠10 may later lose to ♠Q and you end up with only one spade trick.
Mostly you play a low card from the dummy to the first trick; however, there are a number of important situations where you play a high card. These are rare so remember you usually play low from the dummy.
- One obvious situation to play high from the dummy is when you are in a trump contract and the dummy has the ace in a suit where you have a singleton.
For example, hearts are trumps, a spade is led and you have a singleton spade. If the dummy has the ace, then you play the ace as you can trump any further spade leads.
- The main time you play high from the dummy to the first trick is when the dummy has a sequence of honours.
This is especially important when you have no possible winning card in the suit in your own hand. You play high from the dummy’s sequence to give you a chance of winning a later trick in the suit.
Example: Declarer ♠742 Dummy ♠QJ5
You are west and the declarer in 4♥. North leads ♠3. Play ♠J from the dummy. You may win ♠Q later in the play.
- There are some other scenarios where you play high from the dummy at the first trick. Most of these are when the dummy has a doubleton including an honour that will later not win a trick if you play low.
Example: Declarer ♠A42 Dummy ♠Q5
You are west and the declarer in 4♥. North leads ♠3. Play ♠Q from the dummy. It will otherwise have to be played under an opponent’s honour on the second lead of spades.
© 2022 John Roberts