You play correctly; is partner watching?

John Barrymore said, “One of my chief regrets during my recent years in the theater is that I couldn’t sit in the audience and watch me.”

When you are defending at the bridge table, if you send your partner a signal, you hope that he is watching, interpreting correctly and trusting you.

How should the defense go against four spades after West leads his singleton diamond?

In the old days, South would not have opened with a weak two-bid, because he had four cards in the other major and a void, making his hand eminently playable in either red suit should partner have length there. Nowadays, you pre-empt first and worry about other fits later, probably in the postmortem.

East won with his diamond ace and returned the diamond 10. West happily trumped and tried to cash the club ace, but South unsportingly ruffed, drew trumps and claimed an overtrick.

“Why didn’t you trust me?” asked East. “I led back my highest diamond, a clear suit-preference signal for hearts, the higherranking of the other two side suits. If you return a heart at trick three, we beat the contract by two tricks.”

After apologizing, West suggested that perhaps East should have overcalled four no-trump, showing at least 5-5 in two of the unbid suits. He claimed that five clubs was laydown.

East agreed that they had only two top losers, but pointed out that a trump lead would defeat the contract. He also mentioned that he had a pretty weak hand for coming in at the five-level.