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 The Guide.

As a defender, it seems you are always struggling to do the right thing. Of course, you tend to forget the countless normal and successful defences you find, let alone the seemingly rare occasion when you does something really good.

However, a defender has one definite advantage over a declarer. When you struggle away trying to make a contact, you are on your own. Dummy is not there to provide help or advice, except given too late at the end of a deal! You survive or fail by your own actions. Meanwhile, a defender can receive helpful advice or actions from their partner before it is too late.

Today’s deal features one of the aspects of defending I admire the most:

 

 

As West, you lead your singleton diamond and see a rather optimistic dummy opposite a weak jump overcall, even one at adverse vulnerability. Your hopes are initially disappointed when declarer wins dummy’s ace but it becomes more interesting when a low spade is played from dummy at trick 2….and your partner’s king wins the trick.

East, your partner, cashes K at trick 3. Plan the defence.

There is no villain in today’s story but there is a hero. Let’s look at what happened at two tables in the recent Inter Provincial Championships.

Defending on your own

At the first, East’s K scored the third trick, the second for the defence. Next came another high diamond, perhaps looking to promote a trump trick for their partner. However, as you can see, this was not going to work. West’s hearts were not good enough unless East held a singleton honour, which they did not. Thus, South was able to ruff high and play three rounds of trumps finishing in dummy. Let’s look at all four hands:

 

East won their A correctly and returned, a little lazily, another diamond ruffed in hand by South. At this point, the defence had three tricks and a club trick seemed inevitable for the defence. Yet, 9 tricks had been played with these cards remaining:

 

South played their last trump. West had no good discard and the contract made. East had to switch to a club either when in with the first or certainly when in with the second spade. Maybe they were afraid to open up the club suit, exposing their partner’s presumed club honour. From East’s point of view, the defence had to take a club trick or else the contract would make.

West’s error, therefore? Maybe.

Defending with a guide

Let’s look at the other table. Same contract, same initial lead, same spade at trick two and same K cashed at trick 3…..but East did not win that trick. West, Blair Fisher, did some quick analysis. He could see that a third round of diamonds probably would not help the defence and from the play of K, it looked like his partner held the A.

That’s one diamond and two spade tricks. While there was a chance that his partner held a useful singleton trump honour, he could tell South held 6 hearts (from their bid) 2 diamonds (from the fall of 10) and should have no more than three spades (from the weak jump in the other major). Thus, South should have at least two clubs. The best, safest, least stressful way to score a club trick to defeat the contract was to ruff the K and switch to the K.

He alone for the defence knew which club cards West held. His partner might be reluctant to switch to a club from say Jx or even from small clubs…or might not find the right defence later on. Blair knew what to do.

The defence here  took four very quick tricks to beat 4, eliminating any doubt about what East should do when in with the A.

Sometimes, you know the right defence but have to sit back and hope partner can work it out too. There are times when you can help partner out. That’s the kind of partner it would be nice to have.

More on the Multi

 

Like it or hate it, it is with us and when the opposition play it, you have to defend against it. Oh, “it” is the Multi 2!

3 shows 4-7 hcp with at least three cards in each major. You are playing Teams. What now?

Richard Solomon

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