BRIDGE

Should you be passive or active?

Erica Jong nearly wrote, “A bridge column burrows into your life in a very profound way because the experience of reading is not passive.” (She actually used the word “book.”) When you are on defence, you need to decide whether to be passive (sit back and wait for tricks to fall into your lap) or active (positively try to establish and cash winners). It is true that active tends to work better than passive, but not always. Also, if you decide to go passive, often you just play trumps. Which applies in this deal? South gets to four hearts after North makes a splinter raise, showing four-card heart support, game-going values and a singleton (or void) in clubs. West leads the spade six. Declarer wins with dummy’s king and plays a heart to his jack. What should happen now? A 4-4 fit is a bit of an anachronism. Usually defenders lead trumps to try to stop ruffs in the shorter trump hand, but there is no shorter hand here. So, playing trumps against a 4-4 fit is very passive defence. Here, though, West should realise that it is best. If he leads back a trump at trick three, giving up on his initial plan to gain a spade ruff, he will defeat the contract. South will probably win on the board and play its club, but West takes that trick and leads another trump. Then the contract must fail. Did you notice declarer’s error? At trick two, he should have led dummy’s club, planning to establish a club winner or two, or organize club ruffs in the dummy, or both. The curious may work it out.