Monday, September 11, 2006 11:56 PM

Top of Sequences - Discarding Honours

 
PITBULLS:
 
 Honours in Bridge were not designed for signaling or discarding. When an honour is discarded it is either a “wake-up” signal or the top of a sequence. If you are going to discard an honour , this shows the top of a sequence. If you have KQJ10 , you discard the king. If your have QJ109 you discard the queen & with J1098 you discard the J. This defensive treatment is standard & stems from honour sequences in general. This understanding helps partner count declarers tricks or HCP’s and tells her exactly what your situation is in that particular suit. Same with suit preference signals – do not use an honour. An honour shows a top of sequence so if you want to signal the higher ranking suit use the 10 or your highest spot card. 
 
Here are some examples I found from the Internet :
 
“ This case and the next convey valuable information to partner.
 
 x
xxx QJ109x
 AKxx
 
West leads a low card to the 9 and ace. When declarer later ruffs
one, East follows with the Q. That card signals only that East has
the J10 but not the K. 
 
Likewise:
 
 xx
xxx QJ109x
 AKx
 
Against NT West leads this suit to the 9, which holds. If East
continues the suit, he leads the Q.
 
Second-hand top-of-sequence
 
 xx
xx QJ109x
 AKxx
 
Declarer leads this suit from dummy and East follows with the Q. If
declarer wins with the ace, West will know that the K is behind it;
if with the K, East (at least) will know about the ace. To be safe,
this second-hand top-of-sequence play requires a (sufficiently)
strong holding in the suit.
 
A top-of-sequence play or discard  helps partner to count declarer's tricks,
which is very important; and it may show him that he can safely lead
this suit, safely discard from it, or safely unblock in it. “
 
 BJ Trelford & I were defending a doubled part score. I held J109x of clubs and BJ had bid clubs. There was AQx of clubs on the board and in case declarer had a singleton club , I discarded the club jack when declarer drew the last trump. Sure enough , declarer had a singleton club so played a club to the Ace & one back. This would be a standard deceptive play with a doubleton honour as declarer is quite sure about the location of the club King. Anyway, because of my discard of the club jack from a top of a sequence , BJ knows that I must have the ten so he safely ducks and the contract is defeated. Anticipate & help partner out when you can.