Getting Out of the Way — Unblocking and Jettison
🎯 Learning Objective: To learn how a defender’s own cards can jam up his side’s suit, how to clear them in time, and — in the stretch section — one of the least-known plays in the game: holding up a card you cannot possibly win with.
💡 Key Idea: A blocked suit is one where your side has winners that cannot be cashed, because the wrong hand holds the entry needed to reach them. Unblocking is getting your own high cards out of the way before they jam the suit; jettison is throwing away a winning card entirely, deliberately, for the same reason.
How a defender blocks his own suit
Suppose your side’s suit is winning, but you hold the top card and partner holds the length. If you win the first trick and then cannot get back to your hand, partner’s long cards are stranded — you have blocked your own suit as effectively as declarer ever could. The fix is to unblock: play your high card early, even before it is strictly needed, so that when the suit runs, it runs from the hand with the length.
Discard in the right order
When you must shed cards and cannot follow suit, the order matters. Throw first the card you will not be able to get rid of later — usually the honour you are at risk of being stuck with — and keep back the cards that cost you nothing to hold. A defender who discards in the wrong order can end up squeezed by his own hand, unable to unblock when the moment finally arrives.
Choose the defence that asks least of partner
Where more than one defence looks plausible, prefer the one that does not require partner to hold a specific card or find a difficult play. A defence that works whatever partner holds is worth more than one that only works if he guesses right — the same principle as removing partner’s losing option, applied to your own choice of continuation rather than a single card.
Stretch section — hold up with jack-x, even without the ace. This is one of the least-practised plays in defence, so treat it as an advanced tool rather than a habit. Suppose dummy holds a long suit such as ace-queen-ten-nine-x and appears short of entries. Sitting over it with just jack-x — no ace, no queen, nothing but the bare jack and a low card — you can sometimes kill the whole suit by ducking smoothly when declarer finesses. Declarer, having lost to a card he cannot place, will finesse again on the next round rather than play for the drop, and if dummy is truly short of entries he may never get back to try. King, queen and jack are equal in trick-taking capacity in this position, so the hold-up card is simply the one that best deceives declarer about where his losers lie. The same idea extends, in rare cases, to holding up the ten from a longer holding.
⚠️ Common Mistakes:
Winning a trick you cannot use. Taking the lead with a high card you have no way to get back to is a classic block. Ask first whether you can return to this hand before you win with it.
Discarding your only stopper before the honour that needs protecting. The order you shed cards in matters as much as which cards you keep. Think one round ahead before you discard.
Reaching for the jack-x hold-up as a habit. This is a stretch technique for a specific shape of problem — dummy long and short of entries. Used outside that shape it simply gives away a trick for nothing.
🧠 Memory Tip: Clear the road before the traffic arrives. Unblock and discard with the whole suit in mind, not just the trick in front of you — a winner you cannot reach is worth nothing.
Summary
A blocked suit is a suit your own side cannot cash, because the entry sits in the wrong hand. Unblock your high cards early, discard in the order that avoids being stuck with an unwanted winner, and prefer defences that do not depend on partner finding a specific card. As a stretch technique, remember that holding up jack-x — or even the ten — over a long, entry-short dummy suit can kill it entirely, because king, queen and jack are equally good at deceiving declarer about where the missing card lies.