bridge

A conscientious defender should try to decipher the meaning of every card his partner plays. This is especially true whenever partner has a choice of cards to play. In these cases, a good defender should ask himself why partner played the card he did play rather than another one he could have played.

Consider this deal where West leads a heart to East's king, which wins, and East continues with the ten, South playing the seven and West the six. East then leads another heart, on which South plays the ace and West the jack.

Declarer tries a club finesse, losing to the king, and East has the chance to be a hero or a goat, depending on whether he returns a diamond or a spade. If he chooses the wrong suit, South makes the contract.

Suppose East returns a spade, eschewing a diamond return because South opened the bidding with a diamond. In that case, declarer eventually scores four spade tricks, four club tricks and a heart for nine tricks all told. But if East returns a diamond, South goes down one, losing three hearts, a diamond and a club.

East's problem is not entirely a matter of guesswork, however. He should go back to the play at trick three when West, known to hold the Q-J of hearts, elected to play the jack on South's ace.

The jack play is significant to players familiar with the suitpreference signal. Since the Q-J are equal in value at this point, West can indicate a preference for the lower-ranking suit (as between spades and diamonds) by playing the lowerranking card, the jack.

If West had held the ace of spades instead of the ace of diamonds, he would have requested a spade lead by playing the queen instead of the jack at trick three.

(c)2020 King Features Syndicate Inc.