Keep this safely in your folder so that you can refer back to it.
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Going
higher, yes or no?
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1. Honour on honour
It happens that the declarer leads an honour either from hand or dummy and you have the honour immediately above it; he obviously has the intention of capturing your honour by the means we call a forcing finesse; the attitude you should adopt: play your honour or not, depends on several things:
a) the declarer leads an honour from his hand towards an honour in dummy as in this example:
| A 3 2 | ||
| You: | K 7 5 |  |
| Q ? ? |
It is certain that if you do not play your King, the declarer will play the 2 in dummy and will win the trick. He will then lead the Jack and you will still refuse to play the King; his third lead will capture all in one go your King, dummy's Ace and,(sometimes) your partner's 10; whereas if you had played the King, your partner would have made his 10 if the cards had been:
| A 3 2 | ||||
| You: | K 7 5 |
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10 9 6 | Partner |
| Q J 8 4 | ||||
b) The declarer leads an honour from dummy and this honour;
| - | is all alone : play your higher honour: you will lose it certainly but very often you will allow your partner to win a trick; as in this example: |
| Q 7 5 | ||||
| Partner: | 10 8 2 | |
K 6 3 | You |
| A J 9 4 | ||||
| - | is a head of sequence: don't play your honour, it is of no use, particularly as the opponent is perhaps trying to fool you as in this example: |
| Q J 10 9 5 | ||
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K 8 7 2 | You |
| A | ||
If you put the King on the Queen, all dummy's other cards become masters …
Let us resume all that in this rule:
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Playing honour
on honour consists of playing an honour immediately superior to
the one just played, in the hope of establishing a high card in
your partner's or your own hand
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2. The "indirect" finesse
This consists of playing towards an honour in one hand hoping that a high missing honour is situated before it. For example:
| Q 5 4 |
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| A 8 2 |
The only way to play consists of "drawing" the Ace and then playing the 2 towards dummy hoping that the King is to the left: either the opponent plays it and the Queen becomes a master or he doesn't play it and you play the Queen which wins the trick.