Contract Bridge

The defenders’ primary goal is to defeat the contract. In planning the defense, therefore, a defender should automatically reject any lie of the cards that does not allow him to achieve that objective, while at the same time seeking one that will.

Consider this case where South arrived at three notrump on the bidding shown. His jump to two notrump without a genuine spade stopper was somewhat irregular, but no better bid was available.

Declarer took the heart lead with the queen — East playing the discouraging four — and led the jack of diamonds. West won, East following with the deuce, and was faced with the problem of what to do next. Had he continued with a heart, South would have had no trouble scoring 10 tricks.

But West instead shifted to the king of spades, after which declarer could no longer make the contract. This extraordinary play — no other return could have stopped South from getting home safely — had a sound basis. Its purpose was to cut declarer off from dummy’s long diamonds, and it succeeded admirably. Whether South won the king with the ace or ducked it (in which case West would continue spades), there would be no entry available later to cash the diamonds.

Two important ingredients went into finding the winning defense. First, East’s play of the deuce on the first diamond indicated that he had an odd number of cards in the suit — most likely three (and declarer, therefore, with two). Had East held a doubleton, he would have played his higher diamond first to show an even number of diamonds.

Second, the king-of-spades lead was made in the hope that East had the queen (or South the queen doubleton). Unlikely as this was, West could make no other assumption because to do so would have amounted to a concession of the contract. West therefore did what had to be done to achieve his objective and was well-rewarded for his effort.