Wednesday, August 13, 2003 10:05 PM

PITBULLS:

Two interesting defensive hands came up in Red Deer which might have some learning value. I held this collection Kxx Qxx Qxx Kxxx and Vish opened 1♣ in 3^rd seat. Ian Boyd overcalled 3♥ and I had a decision to make. I usually “bid the table” in these kind of auctions. LHO is a passed hand as am I and RHO has pre-empted. In these kind of events conservatism is not rewarded so I bid 3NT . If doubled I will escape to 4♣ . Cam Doner on my left bids 4♥ and around to me so I double. The board is

10	A	A	x
9	x	J
8		x
x		x
x		x

I lead a club and Vish wins his Ace and continues the club queen and ruffed on the board . Ian cashes the heart Ace and leads a spade which Vish goes up with the Ace and declarer drops the queen. Vish continues a club which I ruff. Ian plays the heart King and Vish shows out . Ian now leads a heart and I am in . Whats going on here ? Ian has shown up with 7 hearts to the KJ and a possible stiff Queen of spades . If declarer has 2 spades then he is going to setup the spades for a diamond pitch. You must switch to a diamond before the spades are setup. Wait a minute, what if declarer has a singleton spade and the diamond king ? Your only hope then is the he has K10x of diamonds and mis-guesses the queen . Passive defense is required. I led another club and Ian ruffed. He indeed had K10x of diamonds but the bad news is that he played me for the queen due to my cheeky 3NT bid and –590 for us. Lose a whole bunch of IMPS as 3NT makes with a heart lead and continuation !

I held this hand KQx Qxx 10xxx Axx and heard the auction go 1♦ to my right , I pass and LHO bids 1♠ . RHO bids 1NT and LHO bids 3NT which ends the auction . What a horrible hand to lead from. Neither a heart or club looks right and a diamond is silly . I decided if there is Axxx of spades on the board , partner can help me out with Jxxx of spades so I led the spade king . Wrong ! the board comes down with

J	A	Q	10
x	K	J	9
x	x		x
x			x

Declarer ( Ray Grace ) wins the spade Ace and shoots a spade back to me . I am in with the spade queen so now what. Is there anyway I can recover from my lead ? Actually my lead might have taken out a hand entry if Ray has the Ace and King of diamonds . So counting tricks time . Ray has 3 spades and 2 hearts and 4 diamonds which comes up to 9 . However he can not untangle the diamonds ! So I come back a diamond and Ray cashes his spades and then overtakes his diamond. He is now down to 8 tricks again . He sluffs a heart from the board and leads a heart. He now leads a club and plays the queen . Now what ? This is easy as he has shown up the AK ♦ & the ♠ Ace so the queen of clubs makes up his 13 HCP for the 1NT rebid. I come back a heart and Vish gets in with his KJ of clubs and sets the contract with the jack of hearts. Counting points and tricks keeps you from going wrong. The basics of good defense.