Clever Defense #10-07

IMPROVE YOUR PLAY
with Larry Matheny

It’s great when you can get the better of an opponent with a clever play. And since defense is often difficult, it’s particularly satisfying when you can fool declarer. Here’s a hand where the defense kept one step ahead of declarer.

Scoring: Matchpoints (Pairs)

Hand#7
Dlr	W
Vul	E/W

	93
	Q732
	AKJ75
	A5

	AKJ107
	K
	106
	K9732

	62
	985
	Q9843
	J103

	Q854
	AJ1064
	2
	Q86

West	North	East	South
1	DBL	Pass	3
Pass	4	End

BIDDING: North made a takeout double of West’s opening bid. When South evaluated his hand, he made the common mistake of failing to discount the value of queens and jacks in a suit bid by an opponent. His jump to the three-level showed 9-11 points and North carried on to game.

PLAY: West led his top two spades noting his partner’s high-low in the suit. West saw it might be a mistake to lead a third round hoping his partner could over trump dummy for if declarer trumped with the queen and East failed to over trump, it would be clear the king was in the West hand. Instead, West shifted to a diamond won in dummy with the ace. The queen of trumps was then led losing to the singleton king. Now West led a third round of spades and East was able to over ruff dummy. Declarer still had a club to lose and down two was a great result for East-West.

As is often the case, holding four to a jack or queen in an opponent’s suit may be worth a lot on defense, but it’s a red flag when deciding to declare a hand. South should have simply responded 2 and taken his eight tricks.