Second Hand Low -- Why Not

Here are some reasons for not going low: 1. When an honor is led. You don't necessarily want to cover an honor that is led. But you'll often find it advisable. Now, this was discussed in Covering an Honor(q.v.), so I won't take up space going over it again. In any event, you don't want to get into such a knee-jerk habit of going low second hand that you forget this very important reason for playing high. People sometimes forget that covering an honor works with aces also:

K 9 7
A 8 3
Q 6 5

If declarer leads low from this holding, you'll probably want to duck so as to pick up the queen later, holding declarer to one trick in the suit. So if the queen is handed to you, you want to capture it. It's the same queen you go low to capture on a low lead. Yet, I've seen players so sophisticated about going low that they duck that lead! Mark two winners for declarer!
To be sure, nothing is ever absolute with a single suit. Your best action will be dependent on how declarer is situated in the other suits. If he has nothing of importance in dummy, there's no reason not to capture the queen. However, if he has a particularly valuable suit in dummy, declarer might be trying to generate an entry. You know he could have it by overtaking the queen, but declarer doesn't know this and doesn't know your partner won't take the trick with the ace. It could be that you save the day go ducking and winning the continuation from a doubleton, and declarer is denied that entry.
But notwithstanding the preceding paragraph, you'll probably want to pick up that queen. Aces were meant to capture kings and queens, goes an old saw in bridge. You'd do well to err a shade on the side of doing it too often rather than too little.
The same thing applies in this situation:

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

This is a holding you'll see a zillion times in your bridge career. Jack-low-low opposite queen-low-low (no 10 or 9). You'd like the opponents to attack the suit, assuring you of a trick (barring a third-round ruff), but opponents aren't noted for being overly kind. Sometimes you have to attack it. You still have a couple of chances for a winner, one being that the same opponent holds both top honors, the other being that you lead past a doubleton honor (and guess right).
On a low lead from dummy, East should go low and assure his side of 3 tricks in the suit. But if declarer leads the jack, that's the honor that you want to capture. If East ducks that here automatically, declarer pushes it through to the ace, and on a second lead from dummy, establishes his queen.
As always, there are no absolutes here. But you'll want to give strong consideration to capturing or covering an honor second hand.
Elsewhere I have described how a slam was allowed to make when second hand went low automatically on the lead of the jack in this suit:

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

That 10's not going to be worth anything unless two honors go on the same trick. But isn't it possible declarer is going to finesse into my partner's queen? Certainly it's possible, but here your partner's queen will hold up unless this declarer has a seven-card suit. It's the doubleton that makes the play of the ace almost mandatory.


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

You've got to feel the difference between going low on a long holding and on a short. With an ace doubleton, You've got to take that jack, or you're not going to get anything with that ace. You're going to pick up garbage. On the latter holding, with 3 guards to the ace, you can duck and wait for declarer to come to you with high leads. We see that declarer could finesse the 9, but would he? And maybe next time he won't have the 9.
2. Sometimes you'll want to go up out of fear of losing an honor. Look at this situation:

Q 7 5
K 10 8 3 immaterial
A 4

One doesn't lay down the ace first and then toward the queen. You really don't think you're going to pick up a stiff king, do you? One leads toward the queen on the first round of the suit (and certainly in no trump). You can sometimes pick up the suit without loss in so doing as second hand ducks. So second hand should give serious consideration to going up with his king.
Oh! But supposing that's low from jack-low-low? Well, then, you don't want to go up. That takes care of that. It's sort of like the Rabbi's rule on stiff kings: If the king is singleton, drop it. All kidding aside, you have to use your judgment about where that ace is likeliest to be, bearing in mind such other factors as whether it's the setting trick (in which case, you'll surely want to go up) and whether declarer has at least three cards in the suit, in which case you may get your king later even on a duck.
3. You'll often want to split honors, second hand:

K 8 7 5
Q J 6

You're only going to get one trick out of this holding in trump, so you'd better split your honors to assure yourself of it. "But couldn't declarer play his king into my partner's stiff ace, allowing us three tricks?" Yeah, sure, every time you see a blue moon. Nor should I leave the impression that this applies only to trump. This was the club suit in a heart contract recently:

A 9 7 5 2
K 10 6

Declarer led low to the 9, which held! Declarer had expected to give up one round of the suit in order to win the third round and run clubs on a 3-2 split. And West was a little embarrassed at having thrown away a trick by not splitting his honors.
4. You'll generally want to go up when you can see that going low can do you no good:

K 8 7 5
A Q J 6

The ace is placed favorably for declarer's interests and there's nothing you can do about it. Declarer has no finessing potential, so you might as well go up. And you'll have an even stronger reason for doing so here:

8 7 5
A Q J 9

Here you know declarer has no real finessing position as above, but what you don't know is if declarer has a stiff king or not. You'd do well to go up. There's not much to be gained by going low.

5. You might want to go up to protect your partner's honor in a ruffing situation:

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

Declarer leads toward his ten in a dummy where there are two spare trump. If you go up, declarer cannot now pick up your partner's king and must lose a second trick in the suit. If you automatically duck, trusting your partner to beat the 10, your ace can now be ruffed out, allowing declarer only one loser in the suit.

6. Sometimes you might go up to kill an entry:

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

If West goes low on the first lead and declarer finesses into East's queen, declarer can now pick up the whole suit by finessing a second time and then dropping the king. It may be a daring play to rise with the K, second hand, but then you can figure declarer doesn't have the queen or he'd lead it for a simple finesse. If declarer has outside entries, there's no point in going up. You'd do better to duck and hope that's a singleton. But with no outside entries in dummy, you might well give consideration to rising with that king.
7. Sometimes you'll want to go up to snap up a trick with an honor two levels below your partner's honor:

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

Declarer has to lead away from his king here, perhaps because he didn't plan well, perhaps because he never did have an entry to dummy. West wants to pop up with the queen and save his partner's ace for the king. But hold on a moment. Suppose the situation is really like this:

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

In this case, declarer doesn't have a valid double-finessing position, but popping up with the queen would give him substantially that -- provided he has an entry to dummy. If West ducks, East wins with the king and the queen sits guarded back of the ace. So what should one do?
Obviously I can't tell you ahead of time how the cards will lie. I can only say that sometimes you'll want to go up because you have a strong suspicion that declarer has been forced to lead from his king, and sometimes you'll want to go low and figure that you'll keep a guarded queen back of the ace as your partner wins with his king.
And does this look familiar?

9 6 2 (dummy)
J 8 3
Declarer led low from dummy on his last entry there, your partner went low, declarer won with the king, and now leads the 4. What should you do? Pop up with that jack! Here is the whole suit, which was discussed somewhere back there where East has a reason to go low, second hand, and now West has a reason to go high.

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

Your partner did his job by going low second hand on the lead from dummy. Now it's up to you to grab that jack and spare the ace for another trick.
8.Sometimes you'll want to go up because you want the lead quickly. This might happen in no trump, for instance, where you have a doubleton in your partner's big suit. If you mechanically duck as second hand on declarer's lead from dummy, this may ride to wipe out your partner's only entry, when he needs not only to protect that entry, but one lead from you. With only one card left to help your partner with, you'll want to grab any chance to get the lead and lay that card on the table. Then you can relax. You've done your job.
Here's a hand where I was allowed to make a contract I never should have made:
J 9 4
A 8 7 2
9 7 6
J 6 2
Q 10 3 K 5
Q 9 6 4 K J 5 3
A 10 3 Q 8 4 2
A 7 4 K 8 3
A 8 7 6 2
10 Contract: 2 spades
K J 5
Q 10 9 5

The opening lead was a low heart, which was won in dummy. I figured I might as well take advantage of my only entry to try the diamond hook, which worked with the jack drawing the ace. Back came another heart, ruffed by me, followed by a low lead to dummy's trump, won by East who led still another heart, which I ruffed, and now I laid down the ace of trump. Have you been counting? I have only one trump left in each hand, and one defender has the high trump.
Clubs beckoned at this point, of course, and I led low to the jack, West ducking, East winning with the king, now leading still another heart, which indeed was exactly the suit I'd have led if I had the lead in dummy. That heart was ruffed, of course, West following, and now the lead of the queen of clubs brought the other high club honor, West cashed his last trump, drawing dummy's last, as I discarded a small diamond, whereupon I was on claim.
Had West hopped up with his high club honor and then drawn my trump, he could have cashed a heart trick and knocked out my diamond stopper and . . but it's too depressing to think of how far I would have been down. In any event, West with the high trump and knowing I had only one more in the closed hand (or at least with the opportunity to know this), should have hopped up and drawn my last trump. He can then cash a heart. You don't want to make going low a simple mechanical thing!

9. Sometimes you might go up to give your partner a ruff:

K J 6 3
A 5 4

If you feel reasonably certain you can give your partner a ruff in a side suit, you'll probably want to hop up with the ace first round. But what if declarer is going to finesse into my partner's queen? Well, of course, it's a tradeoff. What do you think is more likely? Declarers aren't always going to finesse in leading toward a K J. Sometimes they have the queen themselves. And sometimes an envisioned ruff doesn't materialize for one reason or another. But at least you'll sometimes want to consider a ruff and the good possibility that waiting a round to see if declarer is going to finesse will be too late, wiping out your partner's trump.
10. Then there was the converse of the above: to prevent declarer from getting a ruff:

8 7
A 5

This was the trump suit, and declarer had just taken a diamond lead with a stiff ace in dummy, and now led a trump. With two guards to the ace, East might have ducked. His partner might have a queen doubleton, and East has to duck twice to let him have it. But with only two trump, East should have jumped up and continued trump, killing a diamond ruff. If West has the queen, declarer would have to have seven trump (and guess right) to snap up that queen if East goes up. But seven trump are far less likely than six, and with only a doubleton himself, East should have felt more confident that he's not going to hurt his patner's hand by going up and will indeed help by wiping out dummy's trump. Here was the actual trump suit:

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

Obviously East doesn't harm his partner's trump holding by going up with the ace and continuing the suit, wiping out dummy's ruffing potential.

So there! There are perhaps as many reasons for going up as for not doing so, which isn't the same as saying there are as many occasions for the former. You'll want to give your principal inclination to going low, while giving some thought to the reasons for not doing so. The cards have virtually infinite permutations, and you have to take each situation as it comes along, remembering that what's right for a holding on one hand isn't necessarily right for the same holding on another hand. For bridge is played in four suits, and we shouldn't forget that.