lead high from short suit

UNBLOCKING high card / short suit

There are times when too much of a good thing can be bad. This can happen the Declarer has too many high cards. They get in the way of the free flow of winning tricks. Their highness locks Declarer out of Dummy or his hand. What to so with this superfluous bounty? Giving them away to friends, relatives and even to the Defenders, is not in good form. The thing to do is to unblock. Unblocking is the deliberate play of an unusually high card. The FOUR methods of unblocking are:
1. Lead high card from the short suit
2. Unblocking by playing a higher
card than is necessary.
3. The Jettison play.
4. Refusing to finesse.

Lead high card from the short suit.
This method is simple and is often over looked by beginners. Leading the high card from the short suit first, enables the lead to be in the right hand at the right time. In the examples on the right below assume that there no outside Entries to Dummy.
In example 1 play the Ace first, then small to the Dummy and run the suit. Notice what happens when you play small to the Dummy's King then back to the Ace. You are locked in your hand and the rest of the winners in Dummy are stranded.

In example 2 is more of the same; play the King then small to Dummy. Now you are free to run the suit unhindered by those troublesome picture cards.

Example 3 is a little different because here you have to play the King and the Queen then the 3 to the Ace. Playing the 3 to the Ace first will lock you out of Dummy. This will leave two winners stranded. Hopefully their continued presence in Dummy during the rest of the play will be reminder that you must consider Entries.

EXAMPLES

1.
DUMMY
K Q J 10 5 2
_

HAND
A 3

2.
DUMMY
A Q J 10 4
__

HAND
K 3

3.
DUMMY
A J 10 9 4
_

HAND
K Q 3

INDEX