PLAY AND DEFEND BETTER : FOR IMPROVING PLAYERS

 

 

Trust your Partner - Not opponent's bidding.

 West deals Both Vulnerable

                                Spade-small AQ972

                                Heart-small A3

                                Diamond-small JT764

                                 Club-small J

Spade-small 83                                             Spade-small JT64

Heart-small KQT4                                        Heart-small 87652

Diamond-small Q32                                           Diamond-small K5

Club-small 9863                                           Club-small Q7

                               Spade-small K5

                                Heart-small J9

                                Diamond-small A98

                                 Club-small AKT542

What went wrong with the bidding?

Declarer ended up in 3NT by South which could have been defeated after a KHeart-small lead, duck by declarer, and encouragement from partner with a THeart-small continuation. Richard later suggests there were 3 other viable game contracts 4Spade-small. 5Club-small and 5Diamond-small that would have made with better bidding, but didn't mention the gambling 6Diamond-small 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 6Diamond-small 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 6Club-small3Diamond-small2Heart-small2Spade-small  & 10 total losers.

The JSpade-small 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 Club-small or Diamond-small is made.

However, on this occasion, your bridge instincts convince you to lead the 5Heart-small

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 AHeart-small. JClub-small is lead from declarer's hand with East deciding to cover with their QClub-small and then taken by dummy's AClub-small. The KClub-small is then led with declarer discarding their remaining heart. Declarer then leads a smallSpade-small from dummy taken by ASpade-small. Now the moment of truth arises for both East and West as Declarer leads the JDiamond-small from hand. If East covers then declarer has little difficulty after taking the trick with the ADiamond-small to make their contract....... but we will suppose East plays low and West takes this trick with their QDiamond-small.

West now has a big decision to make. Do they take their QHeart-small first before declarer can 'discard' another Heart-small on the TClub-small after drawing trumps, or do they lead another  Club-small immediately and hope partner has the KDiamond-smallbare  to overruff declarer (declarer surely has TDiamond-small from their lead of the JDiamond-small)?

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

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

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