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PLAY and DEFENCE for Improving Players
As a defender, one of your aims is to make life as easy as possible for your partner. With that in mind, plan your defence on the following deal.
Teams. Dealer North. Vul E/W.
You are South.
East (dummy)
K1083
1062
A9654
8
South (you)
75
KJ
8732
Q10543
West North East South
1 Pass 1NT
2 Pass 3 Pass
4 Pass Pass Pass
Your partner leads the 4 (4th highest from length).
Over to you.
Planning the defence with so little knowledge of the West hand and so few potential tricks in the South hand might seem rather a tough ask. However, let’s first see what actually happened.
North
42
Q9843
KJ
AJ96
West East
AQJ96 K1083
A75 1092
Q10 A9654
K72 8
South
75
KJ
8732
Q10543
West North East South
1 Pass 1NT
2 Pass 3 Pass
4 Pass Pass Pass
The first trick went to South’s king and West’s ace. West drew trumps in two rounds, finishing in hand and led theQ covered by the king and won in dummy. The second round of diamonds went to the 10 and North’s jack. In order to defeat the contract, North had to under-lead hisQ to enable the defence to score two heart tricks, along with one in each minor. Maybe North could/should have worked this out. There was a danger. Yes, North cashed the Q…and now the defence had only one heart trick! A low club exit before cashing the heart would have been equally disastrous. Could South have helped their partner?
The answer was “yes”. Although South could not be sure exactly how the play would go, on the assumption that North had only five hearts, South could tell that the defence may need to cash two heart tricks….and South could tell that presence of the10 in dummy could make that difficult. Even if the defence had only one heart trick to take, it would not help the defence if both the Q andJ fell on the same trick. Thus, it would be prudent for South to keep theK for later and, at trick one, play the jack. It is very unusual to under-lead an ace at trick one. Hence, South could be almost sure that West held the A and North the Q.
Had that happened, when North won the first diamond trick, they would play a low heart to South’s king. A club to North’s ace would be followed by theQ for one down.
South could not see that at trick one but playing the jack at trick one was a likely no cost and just possibly, as here, a big gain play. Was that your play to trick one?
Richard Solomon
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