[Tcyk]

For some reason, the concept of cover cards is new to me. Cover cards were introduced by George Rosencranz in his Romex System. I've been playing bridge many years but recently ran across the term in J W Montgomery's "Revision" book. He uses a 2-level splinter bid convention. If you are interested, you can look it up. The strong splinter promises 4-1/2 cover cards. This means that slam is almost assured.

What is a cover card? Aces, kings, and queens in suits in which partner is known to have length. It's kind of like counting quick tricks but these kings and queens have full value. Aces are almost always a cover card but queens and jacks are worthless in partner's short suits. An ace may be worthless in partner's void and kings have no value opposite partner's singleton. Ron Klinger, in his book, "The Modern Losing Trick Count" has a brief discussion of cover cards (page 69).

Cover cards are especially important when partner has shown a 2-suited hand.

I didn't intend to make this a lesson. I just wondered how many players knowingly use the concept of cover cards when answering the question, "How high?" I think that all experienced bridge players do consider cover cards but on an intuitive basis. I haven't run across statements such as. "This bid promises 3+ cover cards.

[jdonn]

Tcyk, on Nov 26 2008, 06:48 PM, said:

I think that all experienced bridge players do consider cover cards but on an intuitive basis. I haven't run across statements such as. "This bid promises 3+ cover cards.

I would say that's exactly right. For example if partner shows 5-5 in the majors and my minors are KQJ KQJ, I'm not counting my cover cards, it's just obvious that I probably have two losers if I play in one of the majors. Whereas with AKx Axx I obviously have no minor suit losers. I don't say to myself "alright 3 cover cards!", but I look much more fondly at the second holding for the same underlying reasons.

[Rossoneri]

I guess to a certain point most players do consider whether their high cards are pulling their full strength. This would mean that honours in partner's suit are usually looked at more favourably than say Qxx in a side suit e.g.

[barmar]

Mike Lawrence's recommendations about how to use Help Suit Game Tries incorporates this concept. He recommends asking for help in a 3-4 card suit that has some honors in it, often a broken sequence like KJx. Partner should then upgrade his hand if he also has honors in this suit, since they're likely to be pulling full weight.

[P_Marlowe]

We use cover cards together with the LTC, I came across
the convept reading Klingers book..
The LTC does not work well, if you have a bal. hand, cover
cards work better.

So partner will tell you, that he has a hand with ? loosers
and you try to estimate the cove cards you have for him.
One obvious sitiuation would be, he opened with a preempt,
any to honor in his suit is a cover card.

Any Ace is, KQ will cover 1 losser etc.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[kenrexford]

A friend of mine wrote a book about cover card analysis that is fairly good at explaining the concept. The book has not been published and might not, but I might be able to get a copy "special ordered" if you are interested.

[maggieb]

Any regular forum reader who does not skip Rexford posts should be familiar with cover cards.

[blackshoe]

Tcyk, on Nov 26 2008, 07:48 PM, said:

I didn't intend to make this a lesson. I just wondered how many players knowingly use the concept of cover cards when answering the question, "How high?" I think that all experienced bridge players do consider cover cards but on an intuitive basis. I haven't run across statements such as. "This bid promises 3+ cover cards.

You will run across such statements in the Romex books. For the rest, I agree with Josh and the others.

[kenrexford]

FWIW, I do use cover-card definitions quite a lot.

As examples, the rules as to when to super-accept transfers are CC based, as are the partnership agreements as to a "constructive" raise and modified Bergen sequences.

More often, though, covers are simply bridge. As Josh put it well, "points" is a horrible guage of strength or weakness when pattern information is available. I'd go further than his example. If I open 1NT and find out partner has 5-5 in the majors, I'd rather have Axx-xxx in the minors than KQJ-KQJ.