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Successful Defence?

The following deal was played at 12 tables, a mixture of Open, Intermediate and Junior players. While one table played in part-score, the others all played in game, 4S, and every declarer made their contract. Yet, this game could not be made on correct defence. Plan your defence as West:

 

The bidding at some tables may have been a little different but South would have bid spades, you, West, diamonds, North hearts and East very little!

You start off with a high diamond with everyone following and then play your second high diamond on which East playedQ and South 9. What now?

That heart suit looked potentially dangerous in dummy. If and when declarer got round to playing a heart from their hand, you might choose to duck the first round but you would have to win the second.

South seems to have plenty of spades, maybe even 7, with A a possible entry to some heart tricks (trumps drawn in 2 rounds) if say you took A on the first round. This thought should have put West on the right track, or one of them because there were two ways of beating this contract and two ways of letting it make.

I would suggest that no-one would have laid down A at trick 3 (let alone under-leading it!) but the switch to a club, while more understandable in that the defence needed club tricks to beat this contract, was equally as damaging:

 

Some South players may have jumped to 4 over 2, not necessarily showing a strong hand, more of a shut-out action. However South reached 4 (except perhaps had they opened 4), West must have wondered how South had conjured up an opening bid with a maximum 6 hcp in spades and a possible J. They had to have high card points in clubs. Thus, unless South's club suit was headed by  only QJ, the club switch could only help the declarer. That would be especially so if South had called their club suit in the bidding. 

Thus, West was best to leave clubs alone. The most obvious continuation was a third round of diamonds, J. That was entirely safe, forcing declarer to ruff and letting them continue from there. As you can see, there was no small heart to come from the South hand.

Alternatively, West could switch to a trump which was very unlikely to blow a trump trick for the defence that declarer could not do himself, even if at worst, East held Qxx, which seemed unlikely anyway.

On the trump switch, declarer would probably win in dummy to play a low club. There would be no reason for East to rise with their ace and so, when a club honour wins the trick, South has to play another high club from hand…and now East wins to play a second trump.

All that remains… and 5 more rounds of trumps might cause East a bit of angst, is for West to signal that they like hearts and that can only mean they hold A. So, it is over to a trusting East to discard all their hearts and keep both remaining clubs. Even one club discard from East would mean “contract made”.

Alternatively, South might just play several rounds of trumps hoping for a club discard from East before playing K. 

South’s other line of winning A at trick 3, and playing A would fail because no 9 appeared on the first round of trumps (thus no entry to dummy)..and anyway, the ruffing finesse fails.

Thus, there were two ways for the game to fail. I suspect either the West players switched to a club at trick 3 or else some East players let go a club when declarer played off their trump suit.

Would you have been a successful defender?   

Richard Solomon

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