Problems of defence in bridge are challenging because they are an exercise in far sighted logic. That is why of all the aspects of bridge, there is a unanimous consensus that defence is its most difficult component. To be a good defender, you need a thorough memory to remember the tiniest details from the bidding to the last signal and made discard.
Of course, the mental alertness and concentration need to be always on, along with the vision and comprehension to read not only the opponents possible distribution but also the partner's along with the location of the key cards that need to be placed the assumption of its favourable position at defence to beat the contract.
Bridge is in more ways than one a game of judgement that needs to be based on sound thinking locally weighing all the alternates to find the winning line that would ultimately bring about the declarer's downfall. Of course some defensive measures come about naturally based on the declarer's work line in play based of course on the bidding inferences drawn and partner, correct and helpful signalling. For defence rests on partnership rapport wherein each needs to understand the other's problem.
Today's illustration is a problem in defence where you need to find the perfect defence to beat this contract of 4H bid by north and south as under: I shall now give you the east, hand placing you in east's chair and ask you to defend the 4H contract with the dummy exposed on your right on the opening lead of 7C from your partner.
East west were playing a signalling system where the opening lead of 7 of clubs would be taken as from length otherwise second highest from poor suits and fourth highest from an honour. When you play the QC, it loses to the declarer's ace of clubs. Declarer now plays a trump to the king in dummy and back to his ace with partner giving 5 and 10. He now leads a diamond to the 8 from partner, 10 from dummy to your king.
The crucial point of defence has been reached what are your plans in working out the only defence strategy that can't possibly beat this contract of 4H. Well first let us try and work out declarer's possible losers? Does he have a club loser? God no! for there is a singleton club visible in dummy. What about trumps? He has played out AK. Does he have the queen or is there a remote possibility of partner possessing it? Logical thinking discards partner holding the queen for otherwise declarer would with a doubleton heart surely finesse in hearts. That leaves us with diamonds and spades. Looking to dummy's diamonds. We cannot take more that 2 presuming partner holding ace of diamonds, which means that in order to beat the contract we need 2 spade tricks. How about declarer hand? He surely has AQX hearts (6) plus AC / JC (4) in clubs totalling 11 besides jack of diamonds.
Leaving him with either ace or K of spades. There is no chance if he holds the spade ace. So we place declarer with KS, OK. In the actual deal from a European Championship, at one table, east played a low spade back hoping partner holds AS, and declarer misguesses. The declarer rightly played low. A the other table east quietly returned a diamond to partners ace who exited with a diamond, declarer now played JS and east smoothly ducked. But declarer let it ride and made the contract.
Misdefense at both the tables? Yes. East at the second table must cover the jack with queen hoping partner has A10. Why? Because you see declarer knows for sure the location of AS to be with west. Why? Because, holding KD, KQ clubs and AS, east would not have passed originally. The first defender should also have known that the declarer knows where lies the ace? Declarer held:
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North East
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(Dummy) Q863
J4 63
KJ9876 K4
Q1096 KQ654
9 -
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East South West North
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Pass 1NT Pass 4D
Pass 4H All Pass (Transfer)
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