Covering Honours

Cover An Honour With An Honour ?

One of the first things you are taught about PLAY in Bridge is that if Declarer leads an Honour card you should cover it with a higher one if you can.
This is often correct but it is very far from being universally so. Firstly if the honour is lead from Dummy and it is from two touching ones, QJx, J10x etc it is rarely correct to cover. See Covering Touching Honours This file deals with covering honours that are not touching, including those lead from Dummy, or you can't see whether they are because they have been lead from Declarers hand.

The first test is to consider the bidding, count the points in your hand and those in Dummy plus an assumed minimum for Declarer and ask" can covering promote anything for the Defence." If you can be sure that the answer is no then don't cover, but try to forsee what might happen as soon as you see Dummy and be ready to play smoothly.
A very simple example: Playing 5 card Majors South opens 1 ♥ and finishes in 4 ♥ when Dummy goes down it has ♥Q7632;You hold ♥K6
When Declarer eventually leads the Queen do you cover or do you play the 6 smoothly
Of course you play the 6; Partner has one Heart at most and so Declarer might decide to play them for a singleton King.If you cover they don't have a guess.

A similar situation is when you again can work out that your Partner can have at most two in the suit.
Having opened the suit with possibly only four South leads the Jack towards Dummy's A764
You hold Q92: What can partner hold in the high cards?
Singleton King Disaster if you cover.
Kx If you cover the Defence makes one trick. If you dont you will always make two.
Any one or two small cards Declarer might decide you havent the Queen, go up with the Ace and finesse the 10 on the way back.
When you can see that it either cannot gain or it will make it easy for Declarer Dont Cover

Another situation is when Declarer is trying to deny you a trick or when the Defenders are trying to stop Declarer making one.
Again a simple example.
The contract is 3NT and the lead is the Queen towards Ax in Dummy and you hold Kxx. Covering"might" promote a 10 in Partners hand but if Declarer needs more than two tricks from the suit, not covering may deny this but more importantly you will make your King
There are lots of similar layouts and usually they are fairly obvious but watch for more complex situations.

So to summarise :Only cover when you are sure it will gain or if there are no clues and all you can see is one honour it is generally correct to cover.But remember if the honour is lead from Dummy and it is from two touching ones, QJx, J10x etc it is rarely correct to cover.

See Covering Touching Honours