Cover?

	K 9 5 3
	K 7 5 3
	Q
	A 8 7 3
A Q 4		J 10 7 6
9 8 4 2		10
7 6 5 4 2		K 9 3
9		J 10 6 5 4
	8 2
	A Q J 6
	A J 10 8
	K Q 2

Can you make six hearts here? Ooooh, look at that distribution. The defense is 4-1 in hearts, 5-1 in clubs. Oh, yes, it'd be a cakewalk on even breaks. But . . .Well, two declarers did it -- when East covered the queen of diamonds! No, no, no! You don't want to cover when declarer doesn't have enough guards to pick up your king (or any honor)! A corollary to this is that you don't want to cover when declarer doesn't have enough guards to his higher honor to avoid playing it if you don't cover.

But the answer to the above question is yes, you can make slam even without that gift from East. Without a club lead, you can even get by without the diamond hook. A fair number got a spade lead. Declarer wins the second round in dummy, cashes the ace of diamonds and ruffs a diamond, back with a club, ruffs a diamond, draws trump and claims. With a club lead?

It looks to me as though you can't without the diamond hook. You're going to be an entry short. Take the club in either hand, cash the ace of diamonds and ruff, back on a trump lead, your only re-entry and take another diamond ruff. Cash the king of hearts and . . . and what? You can't overtake without establishing the 9 and if you don't overtake, you're stuck in dummy.

But you can make 6 hearts on a club lead if you take a simple diamond hook. You win in dummy, play the queen and let it ride. Now you can use a low trump for re-entry, ruff a diamond, cash the king of trump and run trump. Now with no more trump left, you must play for the ace of spades to be right where it is, and the contract comes home on wobbly legs where you need the spade ace onsides, the diamond king onsides and the king of diamonds to fall short. Still, it's there, no?

Some might be reluctant to take a finesse when they've got a singleton opposite an ace. But if it's the only way to make the contract, such a finesse is no more remarkable and neither more nor less necessary that a simple Q x opposite A J 10 x. And it should be part of one's repertory.

Though I have offered a belief that the hand could be made without a cover from East, please bear in mind that that is a secondary matter. The primary issue here is not to cover when you can see that declarer doesn't have enough cards to pick up your honor. If declarer could make the contract without East's cover, you still wanna make it more difficult for him, making it more likely that he won't find the winning line.

Well, just for kicks, let's see what declarer does with a non-cover. Theoretically, declarer could run the Q through, get to the closed hand and ruff a low diamond, and now he's going to drop the K anyway. But my instinct tells me that the 4-1 trump split, espcially on a club opening lead, would put the kibosh on that. Lemme see.

Opening club lead, won in dummy, Q of diamonds pushed through for a winner, trump to the A, A of diamoonds, ruff a diamond in dummy, run four rounds of trump, play it in "no trump", i.e., cash your winners, starting with spades, where the A has to be onsides or else: It's a no-brainer.

So I was wrong in supposing that the non-cover would -- necessarily -- give declarer any problem with good declarer play. Where could the defense go wrong? Oh, there are some declrers who like to put off dicey situations until too later, wherein they invite their own demise from fear of putting off the potentially setting trick. Which is to say that some might cash the fourth diamond before hitting spades . . . in which case West hops up and cashes the 5th diamond. . . .