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Two- Part Defence.

East had two defensive tasks to perform on the following deal, succeeded in the first but failed in the second. They certainly did not appreciate that their partner had a big problem.

Playing Teams, this is what East saw on their partner’s opening lead of 8 from West:

 

After West’s initial pass, North opened 1 and you, East, overcalled 1. South launched straight into ace and king asking and emerged eventually with 6NT. Declarer calls for 2 from dummy…and you?

It is nice to have an ace in the bag when defending against a slam though it seemed pretty evident that if you cashed your ace, you were going to present declarer with 2 spade tricks. The lead of S8 indicated your partner held no more than two spades.

So, with dummy not exactly full of tricks, you elect to play 10, a normal play when defending 3NT but more suspect against the slam. If West held a singleton spade, chances of beating the slam would be thin.

So, declarer wins trick 1 with K. Next come three rounds of hearts with both South and West holding three hearts, West’s including J. On the third round, you can discard 5, low encourage, or odd encourage if that is your method. What, though, would you discard on the 4^th round of hearts?

Having decided, take a look at the West hand after one round of spades and three rounds of hearts:

West will have to hold onto their spade or else they are unlikely to defeat the slam. So, from which minor suit will they discard on the 4^th round of hearts? South discarded the 9. West was crying out for some indication from their partner. What did East throw? Alas, 6.

So, you are on your own as to what to discard. West chose a club:

 

and that proved disastrous for the defence. South discarded a diamond on the 5^th round of hearts and scored 5 club tricks to end up with an overtrick.

With the South hand shape unknown to either defender, East’s second discard had to be more helpful for their partner. They had no idea of West’s problem but playing reverse signals, the 10 could hardly be construed as encouraging. 2 may have been dangerous if South held AKJxx but 10 would have been a clear signal that if West had a problem, that East could not help in that suit. (Even a reverse count 8 would send that message.)

If East-West were playing odds and evens discards, where odd is encouraging and even suit preference, then 10 as first discard seems to cover both the lack of clubs and the request for a spade. Imagine  if East’s two clubs were 97. The discard then would be harder.

East was in a relative “comfort zone” in that they held two “safe” spade discards. They may have been “safe” but the second discard allowed the slam to be made: a shame after the correct defence at trick one.

Most North-South pairs played in 6, a much better slam where, after the correct defensive spade play at trick 1, declarer can draw trumps and set up dummy’s 5^th club as a winner by ruffing the 4^th round. South loses just one spade trick. Three Souths played in 6NT and all made their contract.

Never take your eyes off the ball in defence, ever.

Richard Solomon

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