Today's deal is an illustration of how much there is in bridge for the art of defence to flourish. Bridge is after all a thinking game and one needs to pick which way the wind is blowing. This can come about if one pays close attention to the bidding and then try to pick up the inferences from the declarer's line of play to form a picture of the declarer's possible distribution. Once these are established then the most subtle defense looks easy.
Last time I had emphasised on the deception strategy that is the hall mark of a good defender. It is easy to follow the deception tactics in the aftermath. But on the bridge table during the heat of the battle to think of such a deception is surely the sign of a bridge expert who has the vision and the comprehension of which way the defence is likely to go to achieve its ultimate aim - the defeat of the declarer's contact.
In the above context, let us analyse our illustration on the following bidding and deal. The bidding was at a level which posed a real challenge for the declarer for as you can see, 4H is easy enough and 6H well nigh impossible. But this is an illustration for the defence and we put you in the west chair to begin the defence with of course the KC.
When declarer wins in hand, his immediate problem would be get rid of his club loser before touching trumps. Easy enough for him to play 3 rounds of spades and discard a club from dummy followed by a club ruff to eliminate clubs. Now the low trump from dummy to the 10H. Take it from there. As a defender you know your sure 2 trump tricks. But the apparent club trick has fizzled out, spades and clubs almost neutralised and diamonds not likely to yield any trick for the defence looking at the top honours in dummy. Here ordinary mortals would give up won't they to the inevitable. But not Shalon Zeliginan of Israel defending as west.
His defence was immaculate. He reasoned that in the normal course winning with the QH, if he plays the 4th spade declarer would ruff with JH if he lacked the 9H, which was the only hope left for the defence. For the declarer needs to come back now with JD in hand and has a vital problem to solve: You see the opponents have AH, 9H and 3H and declarer needs to judge whether AH is single or 9H. If former, he needs to play low, if the latter he needs to play KH from hand to pin 9H.
Shalon, the true expert that he could visualize the ending well a head at trick 5 when the first trump was played up to him. Spectacularly he took it not with the Q but with the ace leaving declarer with no option but to duck the 4th spade for ruffing would be superfluous as the marked queen of trumps was naturally placed with west. So the declarer saved his JH and when east ruffed with 9H, declarer still hoped for QH to fall under the KH to salvage his contract. But it was not to be when shockingly the queen was found safe with west for the sitting trick in his 5H contract. Defence took 3 trumps instead of 2 due to Shalon's defence being quite superlative!
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North West East South
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K7 9532 1054 AQJ5
J82 AQ3 96 K10754
AK8763 92 1054 QJ
83 KQ96 J7542 A10
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The bidding:
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West North East South
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- - Pass 1H
P 2D P 2S
P 4H P 5C
P 5D P 5H
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All Pass.
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