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“D” for Diamond: “D” for Disaster!

A plan to avoid one!

Part of successful defence is co-operating and guiding your partner, if possible, to the winning defence purely through the card(s) you play. This can be both hard and essential when you do not know that much about declarer’s hand.

 

 

It looks like North made a pretty light-weight take-out double and that the final contract might not be an easy make. Your partner leads either A or K (We will give you the clue that they have them both.). Using your own method of following suit, which card would you play to trick 1?

Unless your partner has the top three diamonds or has a 6-card or longer suit, you know that it will not be to your side’s advantage for West to continue with a second round of diamonds as the effect would be to set up the queen in declarer’s hand. Can you advise your partner it might be good to switch?

If there is a card to play, then it should be the J. In itself, that card should be the top card of a sequence thus denying the queen. In an ideal world, it could give count to your partner, playing Reverse Count, a three-card suit. This time, you can achieve that message in full.

The danger is that the message is not clear to your partner and might also set up a diamond trick for the declarer if their original holding had been Q9x. Declarer could eventually lead dummy’s remaining diamond, inserting 9.

Confusion might exist if your method is natural count because J could be the top card of a doubleton, let alone be the only diamond you hold! However, if you fail to play J, chances are that West would continue diamonds, either because they suspect you might hold the queen or in the hope you are showing a doubleton (for example, even, playing Reverse Count, 10 could be a doubleton holding as indeed could 5...you cannot see 3 although as it happens, your partner can).

Possibly, playing natural count and attitude, 5 could be read as discouraging, unlikely the top of a doubleton. However, for those giving up-side down (reverse) count, the J seems the best card to play.There is, though, variance depending on how you follow suit.

On the actual deal, any switch was a good switch. A second high diamond spelt “D” for disaster.

With dummy having only three trumps and no strong second suit, there was not much chance of diamond losers in declarer’s hand disappearing. However, without a guiding signal from East, West could try a diamond continuation in the hope that you, their partner, could over-ruff dummy, or set up a trump trick if declarer ruffed high. Hence, there was the need for a switch.

West would know that the K switch would be safe (K as you had shown a 4-card spade suit in the bidding: declarer could still hold Q singleton) or they may be more ambitious by trying their singleton club.

After, say, the club switch, South could draw trumps in three rounds and hope miraculously that the J and 9 fall in the same trick. No luck. You, East, will win the third round of clubs. There is actually no need for East to continue diamonds, certainly not had you played J on the first round. However, because West holds 9, the diamond continuation is safe. Much the same happens after K switch.

Had declarer only drawn two rounds of trumps before trying clubs, they would suffer a second -round club ruff to produce at least four losers.

 Did you get your entitlement?

The defence are entitled to 3 diamonds and 1 club trick. It is up to East to guide their partner to ensure they get those four tricks. Did you?

Nothing to do but lead

 

That’s your role. A staccato auction with 2 not being a standard Game Force but a strong hand, Benjamin style, 8 playing tricks in any suit. 2 was negative or just waiting but 3 was natural. South seemed to want to play in game but North made them play a couple of levels higher!

Oh, it is still your lead…and it will be until Monday morning!

Richard Solomon

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