The Duck in Bridge

You’re sitting in 3NT with ♠AK7 opposite ♠Q653. Declarer leads low to your king, and you’ve got nine easy spade tricks if you cash them. So you play small. Wait, what?

That’s a duck. You just gave away a trick you could have won. And if you did it right, it’s one of the smartest plays in bridge.

What is a Duck?

A duck is when you deliberately lose a trick early that you could have won. You’re playing low when you could play high, letting the opponents win cheaply now so you can win bigger later.

The key word is “deliberately.” If you accidentally played the wrong card, that’s not a duck. That’s a mistake. A duck is purposeful, and it’s usually about one of three things:

  1. Maintaining communication between your hand and dummy
  2. Establishing a long suit by driving out enemy honors
  3. Controlling timing so you take tricks when it helps most

You’ll see ducks in both declarer play and defense, in notrump and suit contracts. But the reasons differ depending on which side you’re on and what you’re trying to do.

Duck vs. Hold-Up: What’s the Difference?

People confuse ducks and hold-ups all the time. They’re cousins, not twins.

A hold-up is when you refuse to win a trick in a suit the opponents led. You’ve got the ace, they’re cashing the king, you duck. You’re trying to exhaust one opponent’s cards in that suit so they can’t feed their partner later.

A duck is when you could win a trick in YOUR suit but choose not to. You’re establishing the suit or preserving entries, not cutting their communication.

Here’s the tell: hold-ups happen in suits the opponents are attacking. Ducks happen in suits you’re developing.

Ducking to Establish a Long Suit

This is the classic beginner duck, and it’s all about entries.

You’re in 3NT with this spade holding:

Dummy: ♠AK432
Declarer: ♠65

You’ve got five spades. If they split 3-3, you have three spade tricks. If they split 4-2 (which happens 48% of the time), you need to work for them.

Play this wrong and you’re toast. If you cash the ace-king and then lead a third spade, you’ll establish dummy’s two long spades but you can’t get to them. You’re out of entries.

The fix? Duck the first round completely. Play low from both hands. Let them win cheap. Now when you regain the lead, you cash the ace and king, and if spades were 4-2, dummy’s last two spades are good and you still have an entry to reach them.

You gave up one trick to make two. That’s a 100% profit.

Ducking in Notrump vs. Suit Contracts

Ducks work differently depending on what you’re playing.

In Notrump

Notrump is all about establishing long suits, and ducks are everywhere. You’re constantly managing entries and timing. You’ll duck to:

  • Keep entries to the weak hand
  • Force out enemy high cards while maintaining control
  • Time your tricks so you can run a suit without interruption

Notrump ducks are methodical. You’re counting entries, counting tricks, planning the whole hand before you play to trick two.

In Suit Contracts

Suit contracts don’t duck as often. You’ve got a trump suit to control the hand, and you’re usually focused on ruffing losers, drawing trumps, or setting up side suits to pitch losers.

But you’ll still duck when:

  • You need to establish a side suit for discards
  • You’re preserving a crucial entry to dummy for a finesse
  • You want to keep control of when the opponents get in

The difference? In suits, timing matters more. You duck when you need to control WHEN they win their trick, not just preserve entries.

Defensive Ducks

Defenders duck too, and it’s sneaky.

You’re defending 3NT and partner leads a spade. Dummy has ♠K74, you have ♠AJ3. Declarer plays low from dummy. If you grab the ace, you’ll set up dummy’s king and declarer might have nine tricks. But if you duck, playing the jack, declarer wins the queen and still has to deal with your ace later.

You’re forcing declarer to use up winners while you keep control.

Or try this: you’re defending and you have ♠AQ65 over dummy’s ♠K842. Declarer leads toward dummy. If you split your honors, you make it easy. But if you duck smoothly, declarer might misguess and play the king, letting you win the queen and keeping your ace for later.

Defensive ducks are about creating problems. You make declarer guess, you preserve your stoppers, and you keep control of the suit.

Four Example Hands

Example 1: The Entry-Preservation Duck

Contract: 3NT
Dummy: ♠A8 ♥K74 ♦AK8532 ♣J6
Declarer: ♠KJ3 ♥A85 ♦74 ♣AKQ97

You need five diamond tricks to make this. Diamonds are 3-2, so they’ll split fine. But if you play ace, king, and a third diamond, you’ve got no way back to dummy. Instead, duck a diamond at trick two. Win the return, cash ♦AK, and dummy’s three long diamonds are all yours.

Example 2: The Safety Duck

Contract: 3NT
Dummy: ♠K4 ♥Q1063 ♦AJ5 ♣8754
Declarer: ♠A82 ♥AK84 ♦K62 ♣AK3

You have eight tricks and need one more from hearts. If hearts are 3-2, you’re cold. But if they’re 4-1, you need to be careful. Cash the ace and king. When the jack doesn’t drop, duck the third round. If the opponent with four hearts doesn’t have an entry, you just made an overtrick. If they do have an entry and cash tricks, you were always going down. The duck costs you nothing and protects against bad breaks.

Example 3: The Defensive Communication Duck

Contract: 3NT
Your Hand (defending): ♠Q10742 ♥J5 ♦K83 ♣A64

Partner leads the ♠6 (fourth-best). Dummy plays low, you play the ten, and declarer wins the jack. Later, partner gets in with the ♥K and leads another spade. Declarer plays the ace, you play the queen.

You just ducked your queen under declarer’s ace. Why? Because if declarer has ♠AJ9, your partner has three spades left and you’ve still got communication. If you’d covered the jack at trick one, declarer would duck and you’d be locked out. Your “duck” of playing the ten instead of the queen kept the suit alive.

Example 4: The Greedy Duck That Backfires

Contract: 3NT
Dummy: ♠74 ♥K63 ♦AKQ84 ♣J75
Declarer: ♠AK3 ♥A85 ♦J3 ♣AKQ86

You’ve got nine tricks: two spades, two hearts, three diamonds, two clubs. But those diamonds look tasty, so you duck one at trick two hoping to run five. West wins and shifts to a spade. You take the ace, cash diamonds, but East started with four. When East gets in on the fourth diamond, they cash three spade tricks and you go down.

You got greedy. You had nine tricks in hand and went looking for ten. The duck was wrong because you didn’t need the extra tricks and couldn’t afford to give up the lead.

When Ducking is Wrong

Ducks aren’t automatic. Sometimes you should just cash your winners and run.

Don’t duck when:

  1. You can’t afford to lose the lead. If the opponents will cash five tricks when they get in, take your nine tricks now.

  2. You already have enough tricks. Making an overtrick is nice. Going down because you tried for eleven instead of settling for nine is embarrassing.

  3. The suit might not split well. If you’re banking on a 3-3 break and it’s 4-2, your duck just gave them a trick for nothing.

  4. You have a better line. Sometimes a finesse, squeeze, or endplay is safer than establishing a suit.

  5. Entries aren’t the problem. If you’ve got plenty of ways to dummy, you don’t need to duck to preserve one.

Common Mistakes

Ducking too early: You need to count your tricks first. If you’ve got nine in 3NT, don’t duck looking for ten unless you’re sure it’s safe.

Ducking without a plan: “I’ll duck this and see what happens” is not a strategy. Know why you’re ducking and what you’ll do after.

Ducking on defense without signals: If you duck and partner doesn’t know you have a high card, they might shift to the wrong suit. Defensive ducks need partnership trust and clear signals.

Forgetting about entries: You duck to establish dummy’s suit, then realize you can’t get there. Count entries before you duck, not after.

Ducking in the wrong hand: With ♠AKQ32 in dummy opposite ♠64, you duck from declarer’s hand, not dummy’s. Duck where you have the short holding.

Automatic ducking: Some players duck the first round of every long suit without thinking. But if you have ♠AKQJ3 opposite ♠65, you don’t need to duck. You’ve got four quick tricks and entries aren’t an issue.

The Bottom Line

Ducking is about giving up something small now to gain something bigger later. You lose a trick to preserve an entry, establish a suit, or control timing. It’s counter-intuitive, it feels wrong, and that’s why it works.

Good players duck reflexively in the right situations. They see ♦AK854 opposite ♦63 and automatically think “duck one round.” It becomes muscle memory.

But the best players know when NOT to duck. They count their tricks, assess the danger, and sometimes just cash out. Because the worst duck isn’t the one you make. It’s the one you make when you didn’t need to.

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