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A harder form of defence.

Quite often it is best for defenders to go looking for their tricks if they want to beat the contract they are defending. That can include getting ruffs or setting up a side-suit winner before the declarer is able to discard a loser in the danger suit. Yet, such defence can sometimes lead to the declarer succeeding in an otherwise unmakeable contract….and by this I do not mean just an unlucky singleton lead.

 

West had a minimum 1 opener and despite bidding their suit twice were soon out-bid by the powerful North hand. As West, you lead a high club and continue the suit with your partner either playing first 10 and then 6, reverse count or “high discourage”, whichever you prefer. What should West play at trick 3?

As an aside, this board demonstrates the problems of mixing natural count (high low with a doubleton) and reverse attitude. West just cannot tell whether or not their partner has a doubleton club.

Assuming you can tell that your partner does not have a doubleton club, what then do you play to trick 3? At at least one table, the defence got far too active. Knowing their partner may not appreciate a trump switch, they tried 4 hoping their partner might have the K. Let’s see what happened when East did not hold that card.

 

East inserted Q with K winning in the South hand. Declarer then played three rounds of trumps leaving East with a certain winner (that could not be avoided) and then started playing winning diamonds. Again, the defence was too active as East ruffed the third round with J and switched to a low spade.

South seized their chance by trusting from the earlier spade play that West held J. (They really needed that card for their opening bid.) They inserted 8 forcing West to play J and thus made their contract without the loss of a spade trick. The key card was South’s 10. It would not then have mattered had South held 9 as well (a simple finesse) but effectively by ruffing that third diamond, East end-played themselves. Since East held a third club, declarer could not play four rounds of diamonds and then exit a trump to East….or could they? While East could afford one spade discard on the third round of diamonds, their discard on the fourth diamond would give South a chance of making.

If they threw a second spade, 10 could be played with devastating effect and if they threw their club, then East could be forced to lead a spade as actually happened.

So, East could claim it did not matter how they defended: the contract could make. That indeed was true. So, back to that spade switch at trick 3.

It might have been necessary had East held K and a heart trick but only probably when that trump was K as well. That also assumes South had a useful discard available. Yet, the spade switch could as we saw be fatal if East did not hold K. While East might pass with both major kings, they might have found a bid had they held them.

Thus, not only was the switch dangerous, the chances of it being right were not that great.

So, the best card for West to play at trick 3 was J, a “do nothing” or passive switch. If there were discards coming on those high diamonds, a spade switch would not stop them happening. Passive defence here would be winning defence. South can play three rounds of hearts and four rounds of diamonds. The 100% certain way East can beat the contract is to discard 2 spades. If East does discard their club, South can force East to open up the spade suit and then make a good guess as to where Q is.

Often, attacking leads and switches are needed to beat contracts. There was enough evidence here for West to take a passive approach on this board and eventually, with East's help, record a plus score.

Richard Solomon

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