BECKER BRIDGE

The Delicate Art of Defence

In the same way as declarer can utilise information gleaned from the defenders' bidding, they in turn can profit from declarer's bidding. For example, take this case where South got to four spades as shown.

West's jack of hearts won the first trick, and East's A-Q the next two. East now had to try to figure out where a fourth trick might come from.

It did not take him long to conclude that South had to have the A-K of spades and ace of clubs for his opening bid. This in turn meant that declarer would inevitably come to 10 tricks with the aid of a trump finesse unless East could find a way to derail him.

The only hope East could see was the possibility of manufacturing a trump trick for the defence that did not exist naturally. So at trick four, he returned the nine of hearts, intentionally presenting declarer with a ruff-and-discard.

South had no real choice but to discard one of his clubs on the heart return, whereupon West contributed his share to the deadly defence by ruffing with the spade nine. Declarer overruffed with dummy's ten, but East now had a sure trump trick.

In practice, South cashed the A-K of spades, hoping to drop the queen, but had he chosen to lead the jack from dummy instead, East would have covered with the queen to make certain his eight would ultimately score the setting trick.

The deal demonstrates that a defender should never concede defeat without exhausting every conceivable possibility. East was somewhat lucky to find his partner with the nine of spades -- assuming South and West each had two small cards in the suit, there was a 50-50 chance that West had the nine -- but that's the kind of luck that accrues to good bridge players.