BRIDGE NOTES:A spectacular discard indeed!

Defensive problems keep cropping up every now and then and many a time good defense just slips away without anyone noticing it till the post mortem reveals that with a proper defense put up the otherwise makeable contract was going down. So that makes defense the toughest aspect in Bridge to tackle. The higher the level of Bridge, the more electrifying defense is needed to break a tight contract at Bridge. As in every encounter at the Bridge table between the declarer and the defenders, it is an integral part of good defense to keep a finely tuned partnership rapport between the defenders.
In most cases, where one partner at defense is not too sharp than his partner, there is a feeling of nervous insecurity that ultimately becomes the primary cause of defensive errors of Bridge for the weaker partner is always on the edge of receiving the reprimand from his partner on not making the appropriate defense required. But like in every sport a good partnership rapport can only come when both partners realise that to err is human and therefore let the sleeping dogs lie as they are. It never pays to blame each other at Bridge as this illustration will show:
In a contract of 3NT by south after he had opened 1NT with partner responding 3S west held the following hand: 94, AJ9763, 732, Q9 and duly led his fourth best card of 7H to see the dummy spread as under:
East covered the 10H with the queen and declarer won with the king. Declarer then played the KS, a spade to the Q and the ace of spades, on which he discarded a small club. As west, what would you discard? An obvious low diamond out of the useless looking 3 low ones. OK. Good enough. Let me give the remaining hands of east and the declarer.
Seeking 8 top tricks, with 3 taken in spades, 1 in heart, 4 solid diamonds, all declarer needed was a trick in clubs with the KC to be rightly placed and kicking before AC taken by the defense lets loose a torrent of good hearts to sink the contract. Declarer needed a break-one defense blunder of the duck in clubs. To induce that, declarer deceptively played JC from dummy as if going for finessing the queen of clubs and east, in one blind spot, ducked the AC to give the declarer his game and then listen to his partner's barrage of reprimands that ducking club ace violated every known principle of no trump defense. True enough, but was it wholly justifiable? Can you spot west's error in not helping partner to the correct defense that a good partnership rapport required? Yes, west should have discarded not a low diamond to greedily keep all his hearts intact but the heart ace. For all he had to assume was that his partner held one more heart than the QH shown, which would be sufficient to yield 4 heart tricks plus the ace of clubs which would then never have been ducked by east.
Good defense requires that partners should help each other in finding the killing defense as illustrated in the next contract of 4S by south in a pairs contest, where sitting east you see partner leading 2H to the following dummy spread before you on your right as under.
South has bid spades twice with a jump. Dummy plays low and your JH wins. You shift to the JC, declarer playing the 4, partner the 8C to dummy's ace. AK of spades followed by a spade to partner's queen. The crucial point has been reached. Putting your thinking cap, what should you discard? Partner's 8C suggests he holds KC, which if not taken now would give declarer the remaining 11 tricks for a sure top with his diamonds running as declarer held the following hand:
From partner's lead of the deuce of hearts, you as east can well fathom that declarer hold a singleton heart. But only you know it, not your partner who would now surely try to under lead his KH to give you an entry for trapping declarer's QC to get 2 club tricks-that would have ended as a disaster for the defense, but at the table, the expert east threw his ace of hearts to force partner to cash his KC, which was a spectacular discard indeed!

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Dummy      West

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AQ1053       94

10       AJ9763

K1054       732

J85          Q9

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North      East

(Dummy)

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92           J6

Q4       AJ9653

KJ10864      97

A53        J109

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South      East

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K7         J862

K84         Q52

AQJ8         96

K1063      A742

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         AK8753

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              8

            AQ2

            Q74

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