Sitting with Sally

Sally who is learning bridge with help from us and her mom, the Magnificent Maggie, asked me today about defending.  “What do I need to think about on defence?”

I decided the easiest way to show her was to watch a couple of hands together on BBO.  The very first deal we watched was very interesting.  It was one of those battles between declarer and defender where you are not sure who will win.  It also featured some very good defence.  Here is the deal, first from the defender viewpoint.

Sitting West your hand (vulnerable against not) is

♠ Q7

♥ A986

◊ A6

♣ KQ1074

There are two passes in front of you and you hear 1♥ on your right.  Sally and I discuss what to bid.  I suggest 1NT since you have a more or less balanced hand with stoppers and the right point range.  (Yes, in Mastering Bridge we tell you not to bid notrump with two doubletons but in real life….)

West does bid 1NT and North doubles.  South runs like a bunny to 2♥ and all pass.  Sally and I agree that the ♣K is an attractive lead and in fact our West does too.

Dummy arrives with

♠ K642

♥ J2

◊ Q842

♣ AJ2

Well he had his double but apparently his partner opened a bit light and didn’t want to sit for it.  Declarer plays the ♣2 and partner the ♣3.  Can you tell what partner and declarer have I ask Sally?  I point out that declarer probably has at least two clubs or he wouldn’t have ducked and Sally points out that partner has an odd number of clubs either one or three, likely three.  From the bidding partner can’t have more than four or five HCP and the most likely high cards are the ♠A or the ◊K.

Declarer leads the ♥J from dummy and Sally and West ducks.  Now we talk about the themes in this hand.  There are themes in declarer play and themes in defence.  Here there are two themes for the defence.  Forcing declarer to use up his trump and making communication difficult for declarer, that is trying to keep declarer from getting back to his hand easily.  He needs to be in his hand to play spades and draw trump.

It is for the latter reason that West ducks.  I find this a bit hard to explain well.  But I can point out that it doesn’t hurt to duck the heart and it might help.  Declarer continues hearts and partner follows again.  Now we know that declarer has five hearts to our four.  If we can get him to trump a few times he may lose control of the hand.  This is a hard concept to explain but Sally is about to see it work in action.

West returns a club to work on eventually setting up his club winners and declarer wins the ♣J throwing a spade (we shall return to this point).

Declarer plays the ◊Q from dummy and now we need to deduce who has the ◊K.  It seems likely that partner would have covered the ◊Q with the ◊K so we can place that card with declarer and give partner the ♠A.  We have pretty well placed all the high cards.

West ducks the ◊Q.  Now that Sally has seen the value of the duck of the heart she can see why it might be a good idea to duck the diamond too, although it is hard to duck the doubleton ◊A at the table.

	♠ K642
	♥
	◊ Q842
	♣

♠ Q7

♥ 98

◊ A6

♣ Q10

Declarer pretty well has to continue diamonds and West wins the ◊A.  Now West smells blood.  He continues with the  ♣Q and declarer is doOmed.  Here is the whole hand

	♠ K642
	♥ J2
	◊ Q842
	♣ AJ2

♠ Q7		♠ A93
♥ A986		♥ 73
◊ A6		◊ J10753
♣ KQ1074		♣ 863
	♠ J1085
	♥ KQ1054
	◊ K9
	♣ 92

As you can see that when partner gets in on the ♠A he can play a high diamond.  Declarer can ruff but West will throw away his spade and declarer will never be able to make his spade winner.  If declarer draws trump, it is worse since partner will have high diamonds to cash.

The forcing game works.  But there is a way to make the hand even on this very good defence.  It isn’t obvious and I suspect not many would find it at the table.  Let’s go back to the point when West returned the third club after winning the  ♥ A.  I think this play is very pretty but I am afraid I can’t do it justice for Sally.  Here is the position:

	♠ K642
	♥
	◊ Q842
	♣ A
♠ Q7		♠ A93
♥ 98		♥
◊ A6		◊ J10753
♣ Q107		♣ 6
	♠ J1085
	♥ Q105
	◊ K9
	♣

Declarer has to discard a diamond.  Why?  When he discards a diamond he is able to keep control of the diamond suit so declarer can draw trump and when West eventually gets in on the ♠A declarer will still be in control of the diamond suit.  South only needs one spade winner to make eight tricks, so as long as East has the ♠A (pretty well marking West with the ♠Q) he will be safe.  If trump break 4-2 as it appears and West has the ♠A and at least four clubs South can’t make the hand (from this position) anyway.

By the way, the affect of cashing the ♣A before playing the second heart from dummy is interesting.  It wins on most lies of the cards, I think.

But this is a lot more than Sally and I can get into.  We both sit back a while and admire the beauty of a bridge deal.