Wily Defender #08-25

IMPROVE YOUR PLAY
with Larry Matheny

Defense can be difficult but sometimes you just need a little imagination. Here is a hand where a defender took a chance and caught a careless declarer.

Scoring: IMPs (Team Game)

Hand #25
Dlr	E
Vul	BOTH

	A1085
	5
	AJ984
	Q92

	962
	J8632
	1065
	J7

	3
	AK97
	K72
	K10854

	KQJ74
	Q104
	Q3
	A63

West	North	East	South
		1	1
Pass	2	Pass	2NT
Pass	4	All Pass

BIDDING: North's cue bid of the opponents' suit asked his partner about the strength of his overcall. South rebid 2NT to show extras and North bid the game.

PLAY: West led the jack of clubs and declarer counted his possible losers finding one too many: 1 heart, 1 diamond, and 2 clubs. From the auction, declarer placed East with king of clubs so he played low from dummy and won the ace in his hand. Next, he drew trumps followed by the queen of diamonds. After winning the king of diamonds, East saw he had to get his partner in the lead for another club through dummy. With little hesitation, this wily defender switched to a low heart. Playing too quickly, South put in the ten and was disappointed when West won with the jack and returned another club. The defense quickly wrapped up four tricks and left South to explain to his partner as well as his teammates from the other table why he failed to play the queen of hearts.

There were three reasons to play the queen instead of the ten: 1) East probably needed both the ace and king of hearts for his opening bid; 2) if West regained the lead, declarer would be defeated; and 3) he had no valid reason to not play the queen. Declarer's plan was to discard one heart on dummy's diamond suit and ruff another in dummy so the queen of hearts had no value. Give credit to East for finding the only way to defeat the hand.

Copyright ©2008 Larry Matheny.