Goren on Bridge

Imagine that you are West in today’s deal. Declarer wins the opening diamond lead with the ace and leads the jack of hearts from his hand. Do you duck or win with your ace? Declarer has made a very clever play. He will always have nine tricks, at least, if you hold the king of spades. Leading a heart first is good play. If the spade finesse is winning it will still win later. Should he be able to sneak a heart trick through the defense, however, he will have nine tricks even if the spade finesse loses.

Clever declarers are why we need good defenders like you. Can you see your way through this? The diamond position is an open book. Partner would have played a higher diamond at trick one, if he could, so South is marked with all four diamond honors. What could his heart holding be to justify leading the jack from his hand? If he had anything other than king-queen-jack, he would prefer to lead the suit from dummy. Assuming all this is correct, 16 of his points are accounted for and he cannot also hold both the ace and queen of clubs. If he holds the queen of clubs and the king of spades, the contract can’t be defeated. After running all this through your head, you rise with the ace of hearts and shift to the jack of clubs, winning the trick.

You continue with the king of clubs to unblock the suit and your good work is done. Nice defense!

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