WELCOME TO ADVANCED DEFENSIVE PLAY

You are experienced enough to know all the basic defensive rules. You know the kind… second hand low, lead up to weakness, cover an honor with an honor, etc. Those rules provide a sound platform from which you will beat a fair percentage of the contracts you defend. Now is the time to take that next step. You understand the rules and why they exist, but now it's time to learn why and when you should ignore them. So we look at topics including the following:

• Second Hand High/Third Hand Low
• Lead Up To Strength/Lead Through Weakness
• Waste Your Honors/Play High Even If You Cannot Win
• Duck An Honor/Cover Touching Honors
• Ruff Partner's Winner/Discard On Declarer's Winner
• Removing Declarer's Options And Presenting Losing Ones

LESSON ONE

REMOVING DECLARER'S OPTIONS

Average players accept their fate when the cards lie such that declarer is destined to make his contract. Expert defenders look for ways to bend the odds in their favor. One way of scuttling unbeatable contracts is to foist a critical decision upon declarer before he knows what to do.

As declarer, you prefer to combine your options rather than risk all or nothing on one chance. When defending, passively allowing declarer to test each option in turn is not in your interests. Maybe declarer has two chances -- a 3-2 break in one suit or a finesse in another. If you force him into an early decision in the finesse suit, before he has time to test the second suit, you reduce his options from two to one. He must decide in which basket to place the eggs.

These positions occur in many forms. Given that clue, you are ready to test your defense. Take over from East defending against this slam:

Partner leads §Q against South's slam. How do you defend?

Here is the full hand:

How should you be thinking?

You know very little about declarer's hand. If he has at least two spades he will soon be claiming his contract no matter how you defend, but if he has only one you have a chance. You should therefore defend on that assumption.

Think about how the play is likely to go if you either duck the first club to declarer's king, or take your ace and return the suit.

Declarer will win the king and play a heart to dummy's ace. Upon discovering he has only three heart tricks, he will lead the D10 from dummy and run it. A second diamond finesse will then pick up your queen. Declarer is destined to succeed despite 4-1 breaks in both key suits. Can you see a way to avoid this apparently inevitable outcome?

You know that when hearts fail to break declarer will need to make tricks in either spades or diamonds. Your best shot is to take your ace at trick one and return a diamond. This forces declarer into a premature decision if diamonds is his alternative source of tricks.

Do you think declarer will stake his contract on the diamond finesse when a 3-2 heart break will give him twelve top tricks? Of course not: he will play a top diamond and play on hearts. When they do not break, he will be able to take only one diamond finesse, which is not enough to pick up your queen.

Now that you have the idea, try this problem:

South's 1NT opening shows 15-17 points. Partner leads ©8 (second from poor suits) against 3NT. How do you plan to defeat South's game?

Perhaps you were a little surprised to find the opponents rocketing into game when you had such a good hand. Don't let such thoughts distract your concentration on the task at hand though.

One thing is for sure: how many points do you think partner has? Right -- zero. For his strong notrump, declarer must have the ªA and ªJ, the ¨A and the §A and §Q. Obviously, declarer has at least a doubleton diamond and probably three, so you cannot stop him establishing nine tricks. You must therefore find five defensive tricks quickly. You can count three hearts and one diamond. You have only one hope for a fifth trick. Have you identified it?

Since this is virtually a double dummy problem anyway, let's show you the full hand:

The only potential source for a fifth defensive trick is the ªK. What do you think will happen if you win ©J, cash the ©A-K, and switch to a spade at trick four?

Put yourself in declarer's shoes. With a 10-card diamond fit, he can claim if the suit breaks 2-1. Will he take the spade finesse and risk letting West in to cash his heart winners? If you know a declarer who would, perhaps we can talk him into a high stake rubber bridge game... Of course, a rational declarer will play the ace of spades. When West shows out on the first diamond there will be no way to recover.

The defense succeeded on these first two deals because declarer refused what appeared to be an unnecessary finesse. There are other ways of restricting declarer's options:

Partner leads §Q. Declarer plays low from dummy and ruffs in hand. He then plays the ªQ, partner following, and you take your ace. What do you return?

It may seem that it doesn't matter. Can you see why it does?

Many players would lead a diamond up to dummy's weakness. Others would exit "safely" with their second trump. Neither will beat the contract though.

If you tried either a diamond or a trump, have a look at the full hand and try to spot why they fail before reading on.

Essentially, the contract depends on the diamond finesse which, as you can see, fails. However, declarer has the additional chance of finding you with the doubleton ªQ. You have to deny declarer that second option. If you return a diamond, declarer will win, draw the last trump, and cash the top spades. When your queen falls, he will finesse against West's ten of spades and discard his two diamond losers. (Yes, you may have found a superb falsecard of ªQ from Q-10-x, but most declarers will pay off to such a deception and take the percentage play). Returning a trump leads to the same position. However, see what happens if instead, when you take your ace of trumps you return a club to dummy's bare ace. What do you think declarer will discard? In his shoes, wouldn't you discard the spade loser and rely on the diamond finesse (or Q-10 doubleton spade coming down)? If you force declarer to use his discard before knowing what to throw, he will sometimes do the wrong thing. In this case, he was virtually certain to choose the losing option.

HAPPY BRIDGINGJ

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