What is a touching honour? Sequences such as KQx, QJx , J10x
Should you ever cover a touching honour with another honour?
The simple answer is No! except when you have a doubleton and even then there is a situation when you
dont.. See below.
Otherwise never cover the first of touching honours played. It never gains. Often it doesn’t make
any difference but it can cost tricks
and will invariably provide extra entries to Dummy.
When an honour is lead from Declarers hand you usually cover as you don’t know whether
it is touching or not but there are exceptions See Covering Honours Generally.
Dummy has QJ3 and you hold
K1052.
If the Queen is lead and your partner holds the Ace it is obviously wrong to cover, it may be a Singleton.
Consider the combinations when Declarer has the Ace. These cards are left
A98764
South has a Singleton Ace. Assuming entries to Dummy, covering costs a trick, not covering restricts
Declarer to one.
Declarer has Ace and one other. Covering allows two tricks, not covering gives two tricks, No gain,
No loss but by covering you have provided an extra entry to Dummy, which could give further tricks in
other suits.
Now look at the case which most people find psychologically difficult to resist.
Dummy has QJ3 and you hold K1098 and
Declarer holds, for example, A652 Note the distribution of the small cards
is irrelevant as long as Declarer has Ace and at least one other.
Once again if you cover the Queen with the King Declarer has two tricks and has two if you don’t
but you will be restricting entries to Dummy.
All of the above holds true even in this situation except when distribution and tricks won indicate
it is correct to take the Ace immediately. Dummy has KQ94 and you
hold AJ84 If Declarer
has 10xx they will always make two tricks.
Finally when you have a Doubleton.
Dummy holds QJx and you
hold K7 This time you must cover as not doing
so will give a trick if Partner holds the 10
and if Declarer takes the right view and plays small at the second lead, given entries, they will now
make three tricks.
If the x is the 9 covering provides a finesse situation against
Partners 10 but it is a no win situation.
Declarer will probably not risk the finesse anyway.However if the x is the 10 then you definitely dont
cover for if Declarer has only Ax and there is no further entry to Dummy you have just given an extra trick
away!
You can verify all this quite simply
Extract a complete suit from the pack.
Place a comination of honours such
as J10x, QJx in Dummy,
say North.
Place Q109 or K109 in the
East position.
Then deal the remaing cards between South and West in any distribution you like.
Then check what happens if you cover and what happens if you don’t.
Pick up the South and West cards and repeat the exercise as many times as you like.
You should find that the opening statement holds true.
Never cover the first of touching honours lead from dummy
unless you have a Doubleton
It is important to be aware
that just because a lot of the time it does’t make any
difference
It Never Gains and Can Cost