Bridge Notes: Killing defense at Bridge

Killing defense in Bridge is a serious business one has to go through a painstaking process of card placement and favorable assumption for the defence to prevail. Both inferential and logical reasoning are the vital elements in the killing defence that all serious players of Bridge want to find but very few do. Of course the normal guidelines to good defence have been beneficial and the parameters fixed therein aggressive defence if the bidding has been forceful and quick while cultivating patience for passive defence if the bidding of opponents has been slow and hesitant. But every hand has its own characteristics and it is sheer handwork and mental alertness on the part of the defender to time his defence to perfection after finding the right opening lead for it to succeed. Clever defenders do make an impact but even here, sometimes they falter in their will power turning their defence from success to failure.
Let us learn the intricacies of good defence by illustration. North south land in 3NT on the following deal and bidding:
The bidding went as under:
The opening lead from west was the JC. Place yourself in the east seat and plan your defence after you overtake the JC with your QC - the first good move. What is your thought process after viewing the dummy spread before you? The first reasonable assumption that east should make is that the declarer is laced with both the missing black aces; this means that if south holds back his AC twice west would be lacking any entry to run his suit for red suit honour in dummy were clearly visible and east held both black kings looking helplessly at dummy's solid QS. On this assumption as east what should be your next move? Here comes the time to put on your thinking cap in trying to place the south hand, for east and dummy both are holding 26 HCPs between them. For south to make a 2D response and accept the game invitation by bidding 3NT, he surely must be having 11 points if not 10. Now out of the remaining points west has shown up with one point which leaves south to be holding the 2 aces for with only one ace his bid would not be sufficient for a 2 level response and again a 3NT bid. This leaves at most the KH with west. The cards were thus so favorably placed for north and south that it was difficult to prevent them from making 9 tricks, once they stymied the run of the club suit of west for with the removal of the AD from east, this would make him a helpless spectator, unable to attack his best suit of spades as the dummy held the queen of spades stopper. Obviously the declarer would then run with his 4 diamond winners if not 5 depending on his holding of 5 or 6 diamonds. This plus his 2 black aces and the favorable position of the Tenace of AQ would give him his 9 tricks for the 3 NT contract.
Can you find sometime clever to forestall south? The Belgian expert sitting east threw a ruse to south and put his partner also to the final test. Guess what? He returned the 9C at trick 2. South ducked as expected thinking west has KC and has led from KJ 10 to 4 or 5. South held the following hand.
But now comes the testing time for west whose mind throbbed with the burning question as to who held the KC-surely not the declarer who could not be ducking twice holding both the top club honours. If KC reasonably assumed lies with east, west reasoned that his play of 9C was therefore, a signal for west giving him the entry to switch to his partner's killing suit which looking to the dummy could only be spade. So west overtook 9C with his 10C and fired back a spade immediately. It was curtains for south as east west had found the killing defence.

=========
North
=========
Q 7
A Q 5 4 3
K Q 7 2
6 4
=========

========
East
K J 10 9
10 7 6 2
A 8
K Q 9
========

=======================
N       W      E      S
=======================
1H      P      P     2C
3D      P      P    3NT
All pass
=======================

============
A 8 6
J 10 9 6 5 3
J
A 7 5
============