Contract Bridge

It is generally agreed that of the three facets of bridge — bidding, declarer play and defense — the most difficult is defense. Long experience teaches most players to bid and play their cards as declarer reasonably well. But when it comes to defense, many players don’t function nearly as well as they should. This is somewhat surprising, since the same faculties that enable players to become competent declarers should also enable them to defend well.

Assume you’re East in today’s deal and that partner leads the king of diamonds against six hearts. South wins with the ace and returns a trump, on which West discards a diamond. You take the heart ten with the ace and must then decide what to do at trick three.

Given what you can see in dummy and your own hand, there’s really only one correct play. You should lead the king of spades! If you do, declarer goes down; if you don’t, declarer makes the slam.

How can you be expected to make such an extraordinary play? Actually, it’s not really that difficult if you give it some thought. After all, you can count 12 sure tricks for declarer if you allow him to score them — one spade (he’s sure to have the ace for his six- heart bid), five hearts, one diamond and five clubs.

Your only chance to stop the contract is to force South to take the ace of spades at trick three. Then, if he was dealt a 3- 6-1- 3 distribution — which is what you have to hope — he’s sure to bite the dust. Regardless of how he proceeds, he won’t be able to get out of dummy later without allowing you to score the setting trick.