Friday, April 01, 2005 3:02 PM

Defense - Line of play

PITBULLS:

Defense is the most difficult part of the game of Bridge. You need all the help you can get from partner via count , signaling and the way the partnership is defending. Playing against a good declarer you have an additional defensive aid , the way declarer is playing the hand. Against weak declarers you do not have this inference as quite often their play is irrational and following what they are doing may not help you. Not so vrs an expert declarer though as they do not self destruct when playing a hand. Why guess when their line of play provides the answer ? Defense is the ultimate game of spy vrs spy. You figure out declarers line of play and come up with a counter attack.

Tom Gandolfo is in 4♠ on an auction of 1♣-P-1♠-P 2♠-P-4♠-P auction . You lead a diamond and the board hits with KQ10x Axxx x KJxx . Partner wins the Ace and returns a trump won on the board . Your partner is trying to prevent a cross-ruff however Tom wins the spade and immediately returns a spade with your partner winning the Ace and returning still another spade. You had a singleton trump so what do you discard on the trump ? The way Tom is playing the hand means he thinks he has 4 heart tricks , 3 spade tricks , 2 clubs and a club ruff for 10 tricks . You have 4 hearts to the 1098x so under no circumstances do you discard a heart. Saving diamonds when Tom is playing the hand this way makes no sense. If Tom had diamonds to establish , he is misplaying the hand badly by leading trump himself. Partner had the stiff heart jack so you beat the hand for 12 IMPs.

I opened 1♠ with AJ10xx xx A AQ10xx and LHO bid 2♠ and RHO bid 4♥ which you double. All pass and you lead a trump. The board hits with x KQxxx Q987x xx and Klimo the declarer wins the heart in his hand and leads a club which is won by your partner who returns another trump won on the board. Klimo leads a club and ruffs it with the heart Ace and leads the diamond king . You win with the stiff ace so what is your next step. Klimo is playing this hand very strange if he has 4 trump. Why not just go after diamonds ? He must have only 3 trump and partner has the outstanding 3^rd trump. Accordingly you lead a club and Klimo ruffs it on the board and sure enough draws the last trump. He leads a diamond to his jack and you show out. He is now doomed as you have a simple dummy lock and partner gets his diamond ten and his 5^th club for +300 . Declarer had 7 spades so if you try to cash your spade Ace you hand him the contract as the diamond jack provides an entry to his hand.

Take inferences from bad declarers at your own risk . Taking inferences from a good declarers line of play will quite often put you on the road to successfully defeating a contract. Their line of play is there for everyone to see so do not ignore it. It is ironic but their own skill can lead to their downfall !