PLAY AND DEFEND BETTER : FOR IMPROVING PLAYERS

Trust your Partner - Not opponent's bidding.

 West deals Both Vulnerable

                                 AQ972

                                 A3

                                 JT764

                                  J

 83                                              JT64

 KQT4                                         87652

 Q32                                            K5

 9863                                            Q7

                                K5

                                 J9

                                 A98

                                  AKT542

What went wrong with the bidding?

Declarer ended up in 3NT by South which could have been defeated after a K lead, duck by declarer, and encouragement from partner with a T continuation. Richard later suggests there were 3 other viable game contracts 4. 5 and 5 that would have made with better bidding, but didn't mention the gambling 6 small slam by North that makes on any but an opening heart lead, and even then has chances to make depending on defenders' choices.

Imagine you are East and find yourself defending 6 with North declarer. From the bidding you know little about North's hand except they have <= 6 losers and that South has a 5 L hand with 3 key cards in clubs, an outside K, no Q and has 6322  & 10 total losers.

The J looks very tempting as a lead doesn't it?.... but if you choose that lead that will be the end of EW's defense with careful declarer play, similarly if a lead of  a  or  is made.

However, on this occasion, your bridge instincts convince you to lead the 5. 

East's job done attention now switches to their partner who will have their own moment to ponder.

The play proceeds with North playing low in dummy and taking West's ten with the A. J is lead from declarer's hand with East deciding to cover with their Q and then taken by dummy's A. The K is then led with declarer discarding their remaining heart. Declarer then leads a small from dummy taken by A. Now the moment of truth arises for both East and West as Declarer leads the J from hand. If East covers then declarer has little difficulty after taking the trick with the A to make their contract....... but we will suppose East plays low and West takes this trick with their Q.

West now has a big decision to make. Do they take their Q first before declarer can 'discard' another  on the T after drawing trumps, or do they lead another   immediately and hope partner has the Kbare  to overruff declarer (declarer surely has T from their lead of the J)?

Not an easy decision to make without any knowledge of declarer's hand shape or HCP other than it appears they have 5+and a singleton . Perhaps declarer's play of the hand will give the best clue to direct West to the right choice as their play of the K to discard a  seems unnecessarily early. 

So 6 by North is not without hope and possibly worthwhile bidding if playing teams. 

Started by SEAN LYNCH on 10 Apr 2019 at 01:42PM