Declarer Play - High Cards from the Short Side

When people are first starting to play bridge a mistake most tend to make is to not play the high cards from the short side of the suit first. This leads to the suit being blocked and potential winners being stranded in Dummy with no way back to them.

What does that mean?

Go grab a deck of cards.

Deal out only 1 suit (♠) and give yourself the ♠K2 and Dummy the ♠AQJ4

Dummy
♠AQJ4

Declarer
♠K2

You are up and in your hand. Play the 2♠ towards Dummy's Ace. That wins the trick. Now play the 4♠ from Dummy and win the trick in your hand.

Dummy
♠QJ

Declarer

Where are you?
That's right. In your hand.

Where are your winners?

That's right. In Dummy. Ooops!

Now in a real game you might be able to get over to Dummy with another suit. But you might not. An easy way to prevent this calamity from happening is to play the HIGH cards from the SHORT side first.

Dummy
♠AQJ4

Declarer
♠K2

So in this example the short side is Declarer. Declarer has fewer ♠. They only have 2♠ and Dummy has 4♠. So play the HIGH cards from the SHORT side first. Since the SHORT side is Declarer's hand and the HIGH card in Declarer's hand is the K♠, play the K♠ first and the 4♠ from Dummy. Then you can play the 2♠ from your hand and the A♠ from Dummy. You will be in Dummy now to enjoy your winners!

In all these hands assume you are in Dummy. What card do you play first?

Example 1:

Dummy
♠Q4

Declarer
♠AK2

Answer: Play the Q from Dummy and the 2 from Declarer.

Example 2:

Dummy
♠KQJ4

Declarer
♠A2

Answer: Play the 4 from Dummy towards the A.

Now you try!

Hand 1

Dummy
♠AQJ4

Declarer
♠K2



Hand 2

Dummy
♠Q4

Declarer
♠AKJT2



Hand 3

Dummy
♠A8

Declarer
♠KQ2



Hand 4

Dummy
♠KQJ4

Declarer
♠A2



Hand 5

Dummy
♠K3

Declarer
♠AQ2



Hand 6

Dummy
♠AKQ4

Declarer
♠J2



Hand 7

Dummy
♠KQ4

Declarer
♠AJT82



Hand 8

Dummy
♠Q3

Declarer
♠AKJ9



Hand 9

Dummy
♠AK4

Declarer
♠QJT32



Hand 10

Dummy
♠J4

Declarer
♠AKQT32



Note that this "High card from the short side" works even when you DON'T have the A.

Hand 11

Dummy
♠K4

Declarer
♠QJ2



Hand 12

Dummy
♠J4

Declarer
♠KQT2



Hand 13

Dummy
♠KJ4

Declarer
♠Q2



Hand 14

Dummy
♠T4

Declarer
♠KQJ2



Hand 15

Dummy
♠KQJ4

Declarer
♠T2