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A Time for care….and flair!

When one’s opponents are in an unusual contract, one they should not make, your task as a defender is not to offer them any slim chance of making, if you can. On today’s deal, North-South were obviously too high but nevertheless, it would take care for the defence to beat the over-ambitious game.

 

The 1NT rebid showed 12-14 hcp. You, West, lead 2 and an examination of dummy shows that North has misbid, perhaps a disadvantage of playing variable no-trump openings. With a maximum 22 hcp between the two hands, it looked like the defence should triumph. Yet, North had chosen a rather good time to misbid, if there ever is such a time!

At trick 1, East played K and South took A. They advanced 10 from hand which you covered with one of dummy’s honours taking the trick, East following with 3. Next came 2 from dummy, 5 from East, K from South. Over to you. How are you going to defend?

Any idea that 3NT would be easy to defeat would soon vanish. Already, both black suits looked troublesome for the defence and South had only owned up to 7hcp so far. The best defence is a smooth duck of the K for these were the four hands:

 

A smooth duck would see South play a second spade to dummy and seeing as they were rather desperate, insert 9 and then cash A discarding a diamond. They would then do extremely well to play a second club to 10. They would more likely play East for A and insert Q thus losing two club tricks. As long as West exits passively with a diamond, the defence will score two clubs, 8 (a benefit of covering at trick 2), a high diamond and two heart tricks, a very healthy down 2.

It is harder for the defence if West wins A though the contract should still be defeated if West is patient. A diamond exit looks moderately passive and forces 10 from dummy and Q from East. If South ducks this, East exits 4 to West’s 10 and West must be careful to observe that 3 is missing. West must exit a second diamond to J K from East. If South wins, they cannot stop the defence taking 2 tricks in each red suit and A for one down. It is the same if South wins to cross to dummy and finesse J. Tight but the defence should prevail.

Alas, when in with the A at trick 3, West tried to cash heart tricks…but there was only one to cash. This was wrong for any or all of the following reasons:

·       There was no need to panic at trick 4. It was unlikely that a weak no-trump hand could then run off 9 tricks without losing the lead. Cashing the Q was like throwing a coin in the air and hoping it landed on your choice. East had shown no liking for hearts.

·       For those who play Smith Peters (the natural version), East would play a highish spade at trick 2 had they liked hearts (East had followed with 3)

·       Adding up missing high card points, West knew that East had at least 6 along with the already played K. That assumes South had the maximum 14. They, East, might have more. Although the first few tricks had not gone well for the defence, East was very likely to win the lead fairly soon. West just had to show patience.

Cashing Q was an act of desperation and although South was very close to making 9 tricks on the actual lay-out, there was no need for West to panic.

Their defence required care (a diamond exit at trick 3…even a spade exit would have been fine) while ducking that K(smoothly, of course!) would provide the flair. If South had found a way to come to 9 tricks after that smooth duck, then you just had to say “well played”.

Richard Solomon

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