LEARNING CENTER

3. You will get 2 tricks by playing low. If East plays an honor, win and you have a second trick (and stopper).

If you erroneously play the 10 and East plays an honor, you are down to only 1 trick and 1 stopper. 

(If either opponent has both the K and Q, it won't matter what you do).

This is one layout where you need to correctly play the 3:

	103
K862		Q974
	AJ5

Q. You hope West has led from the king and that the queen wins the trick. If East has the king, you have no chance. If you play low, East won't put up the king when looking at the queen in dummy.

J. You hope West has led 4th best from something like: KQ842 and that the jack will win.

If you don't try the jack, you'll never get it. An experienced East player won't waste an honor with something like K9x or Q10xx.

2 (or it depends on the full deal).

Generally, you would play the 2, guaranteeing a trick and a stopper. On the 2 play, if East plays the A, your king is good. If East plays the Q, you later have a sure trick/stopper. If East plays anything else, your jack wins. The most you can ever get is 1 trick.

If you chose #4 (it depends on the full deal), you are also correct. If another suit is wide open, you might try the K in the case where if it wins, you can run for home with 9 top tricks.  Something like this:

	K2  95  K1087  A10963
	J75  J87  AQJ  KQJ4

Incidentally, with Kx in dummy and only Jx in your hand, it is a pure guess at trick 1 (as to whether or not the lead was from the ace or the queen).

3. This guarantees a stopper. If you play the 10 (as I saw an experienced life master do), you risk this layout:

	103
KJ74		A85
	Q962

J. If an experienced East player has the king, it won't matter what you play (he will cover the jack, or stick in an intermediary card otherwise). It isn't likely to matter, but the jack can be helpful on this sort of layout:

	J5
K10843		972
	AQ6

The jack wins and you might lose the lead to LHO (the opening leader). He can no longer attack spade. Meanwhile, if you had played low from dummy, your queen would win and then LHO could continue spades with the king.

J. Your hope is that the lead is from the Q. If so, the jack wins and you have 3 tricks. If East has the jack, there is nothing you can do about it (if you play low, an experienced East will stick in the 9 or the 10 - not the queen).

(If dummy had J9x, it would be a guess as to whether the lead was from the Q or the 10).