Test Your Defence Column by Julian Pottage
Originally published in, and reproduced here with permission of, Bridge Magazine
Hand 1
You lead the four of spades, covered by the nine, king and ace. Declarer cashes the ace-king of hearts and three top clubs, East following each time. Then comes the ten of spades to your queen (seven from East). What do you lead next?
Hand 2
You lead the king of hearts. The ace wins and partner plays the two (discouraging). A heart comes back to the four, nine and ten. You exit with a low trump, won by the ten. Then comes a second round of trumps, to which East follows again. What do you do?
Solutions to Test Your Defence
The original West switched to the king of diamonds. This was not a success.
‘Why did you do that?’ East enquired.
‘I was trying to make things easy for you if you had the queen. It looked like either black suit would be giving a ruff and discard, so I didn’t think I had any choice.’
‘”Didn’t think” seem to be the operative words, more like. While it’s true I could have had K-7-5 of spades when a spade exit would have given a ruff and discard, you should have done some counting. South does have to have thirteen cards you know.’
‘No need to be like that. Perhaps I did get it wrong. If South were 2=5=3=3 as I thought, I could afford to give a ruff and discard.’
‘Yes, and as it was, when he was just trying to bamboozle us, the spade was safe too.
At the table, West played back a trump. The declarer won in hand, trumped a heart and played four rounds of diamonds, throwing two clubs from hand. With nothing but clubs left, East had to give a trick to the queen.
North smiled, ‘Well played.’
‘Thank you, I knew from West’s initial pass that the king was over the queen. That’s why I played it as I did.’
‘Pity the defence wasn’t as good as the play,’ East observed wryly. ‘That third round of round of trumps was a total disaster. I had to throw my exit card in hearts.’
‘Can’t declarer play a third spade anyway?’ West retorted.
‘Yes he could – you needed to switch to a low club. I did play the four of hearts on the second round of the suit trying to tell you I had something in clubs. So long as you have 10-9-x or 10-8-x, we can afford to play the suit once.’