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Mind Reading.

The same could be said of playing boards but when defending a deal, it pays at times to be able to be a mind-reader. Take these two defensive situations which have a certain similarity:

 

A simple natural sequence to 4. You lead 9 which is won by declarer’s K. East plays 2. At trick 2, declarer leads 3… and you?

 

A rather more complex sequence to 6. After a Game Force opening and negative/waiting response, spades were agreed. Both 4-level minor bids were cue-bids (1^st/2^nd round controls) and were followed by Key Card (0 or 3 response) and then trump queen ask (5). 6 showed both Q and K.

You lead 2 and partner plays 9 as declarer’s J wins trick 1. Then comes 8 from declarer.. and you?

Have you noticed the similarity in the 2 situations? In both cases, you hold K and have been offered the opportunity of winning the trick with this card at trick 2. Yet, the answer as to whether you should play your king is in each case different.

In the first deal, the game is Pairs. What is declarer up to? South must be wanting to ruff a heart in dummy or else they would win with A in dummy to play a trump. So, does that mean they are missing the A as well? The answer is not necessarily:

 

Whether or not your partner has A, It seems to be a good idea to take your K because if declarer does hold A, you will not make your K. When West played low, declarer played Q, then A and ruffed a heart. Whether they made an overtrick now depended on how trumps were played. Low to 10 and the defence could at best win A and just the one spade trick.

South should not go wrong if West wins K though the trump suit offers the opportunity to lose two trump tricks (they will not as long as they finesse twice, even if they played Q first up. One down if they played A on the second round of the suit.

What then the second deal? The stakes are even higher! Should you take K in case South has led away from A?

 

The answer this time is “no”. The first question you should ask yourself is why declarer, holding A did not go to dummy to take a heart finesse. Worse, far worse, could follow if you do win K. Even if you exit a safe trump, South could do a good piece of mind-reading of their own.

Notice South’s predicament. They were only trying to make 12 tricks, not 13. If the diamonds broke 3-3, they would make all 13 tricks. Say, as here, that was not the case. There was a certain heart loser and nowhere for the club loser to go.

South could have played more rounds of trumps hoping for a favourable diamond discard..or simply relied on a good diamond break. However, they gave their opponents a chance to misdefend, as here if West took their K.

What would you lead against a small slam holding AK and a few others? It would seem fairly obvious to lead K for count and go from there. The trump lead followed by West taking K, suggested strongly East held A. So, after trumps were drawn, declarer could take a ruffing heart finesse and thereby make their slam.

6 made 4 times and failed 6 times. I cannot say that those who made the slam made it as above but the heart play at trick 2 seemed like a no cost card. Once East won A (after West ducking) and returned a heart or any minor card, the slam could only be made via a double squeeze.

On the run of the trumps, East has to retain 4 diamonds and thus their last 6 cards can only be 2 clubs and 4 diamonds. At that point, West has Q32  K and 2 diamonds. When declarer now plays 3 rounds of diamonds, the third round forces West to discard a small club to preserve K and declarer will now make 8 for their 12th trick. While in theory the slam can always be made after any lead except a club, it is much harder for South if West ducks at trick 2. 

So, a similar defensive problem and in each case a different answer depending on what West thought the declarer was up to. Are you a good mind-reader? If the answer is “yes”, then you have the makings of a good defender too.

Richard Solomon

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