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Blame!

“You gave away the 10^th trick. It must be your fault.” Does that sound familiar? Hopefully not but before such a statement is made, make sure you yourself are squeaky clean. Often, it is not that straightforward.

 

You have a standard take-out double of 1 and a standard pass of 4. All good. You lead A and partner follows suit with 3, to be followed by 9 from South. Your system is low encouraging. When you next play K, your partner plays 8 and declarer 10. What next?

There was a missing heart, 2. If your partner held it and wanted to encourage, they would surely have played it at trick 1. Both slightly concerned by the actual heart situation and being rather concerned by the diamond suit in dummy, West decided to actively look for a fourth trick for the defence (East was marked with very few high cards)  and bravely, naively, regretfully (choose the appropriate word) switched to 7. Declarer played low from dummy…and the result was not good for the defence:

 

Within a few seconds, South scored their Q, had drawn trumps and conceded a trick to the A, making 10 tricks. Within a milli-second of the claim, East was moaning to their partner about the loss of a fourth defensive trick, the club trick. “Terrible switch” and the like could be heard and West felt it was their fault.

West might have continued with a third round of hearts or indeed switched to a trump or even played any diamond and the result would have been just the same as the Q would then have been discarded on the 13^th diamond. At least, West saw the danger and tried to do something positive about it.

East was not finished. “You saw my encouraging heart card. It would be very unusual for that to be the bottom of a doubleton. You knew I held Q. So switch to a low heart at trick 2 and I can then switch to a club to beat the contract.”

That statement was largely correct except for one small point. What about East’s own carding? It looked like they were conducting an examination with their partner, West, in the hot seat. “See if you can find the right defence…and if you cannot, then it must be your fault.” That is not how any defence should work. Defenders are there to help each other…and East was guilty of not doing that, or not doing all they could.

Once West cashed the K, the contract was unbeatable. How could West be persuaded not to do that? East should have played Q at trick 1. East would never play that willingly unless they held J (top of touching honours). With only two hearts in dummy, that signal was much more relevant than high or low encourage, and certainly more so than a count card. If that had occurred, West could lead a low heart (5 to suggest a switch to the lower unplayed suit, clubs). Maybe the Q was a singleton. The same logic still applies though giving South 5-5 in the majors offers limited hope for tricks in the minor suits for the defence.

Yes, it may have been West’s switch which allowed the contract to make but when it comes to blame, a high percentage falls on East’s shoulders. East may not know whether it would help their partner to lead low away from A but by playing Q at trick 1, they can at least offer their partner the option of leading low in case it might. Keep your own house in order before casting blame.               

Richard Solomon

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