Defense at Bridge has different levels according to the defenders' ability. Let me test yours on the following deal bid as under with partner leading 9H to defend 4S bid as under:
Sitting east you see the following dummy opening on your right:
Partners opening lead of 9H runs to the declarer's QH. Declarer leads the club 3 to dummy's king with partner giving the 4. You take the AC and switch to a trump finding partner with AQX as spades follow from partner to cut dummy's ruffing power. The declarer takes the third trump in hand and plays 2 more to squeeze. Dummy discards 2 diamonds; you can spare 1 club more having already thrown a club on the third spade. But on the fifth trump what is your discard? And why? Bridge is a thinking game. It is also a game of assumptions and judgments. A good defender has excellent visualization of declarer's possible holding and plans his defense accordingly.
Let us narrow your options logically speaking. Obviously you cannot discard a diamond which would enable declarer to an easy securing of his contract. So the choice narrows down to hearts or clubs. But first what do you see as declarer's hand on visualization.
The bidding tells us that with prtner producing AQ of trumps, the declarer is bound to have the remaining 12 points for his opening bid. So far so good. How about the distribution? Well he has 5 spades and 3 hearts as partners opening 9H suggests a doubleton. That leaves him with 5 cards which could split either way 3 - 2 or even 4 - 1.
What is your choice? Is there any other inference that could help you take a more accurate a view of declarer's minor suit holdings. Yes-partners 4 of clubs on the first club led suggest an even holding. It cold not be a doubleton which would leave declarer with an impossible 6 clubs. What if partner holds 4? That would leave declarer with 4 also leaving him with a singleton diamond. But the bidding tells us that this is not possible for with a 4 card minor, declarer would have rebid 2 clubs rather than rebidding his weak 5 card spades twice. There you have it declarer must be holding a doubleton and if it is with jack of clubs, your QC is gold and cannot be discarded giving you no alternate but to throw a heart. True, declarer's hearts will no doubt run. But as I said Bridge is imagination and foresight too.
Let us see what happened at the original table where east discarded QC praying that west holds JC which was not the case. South now led the JC throwing a diamond from dummy, east was subjected to a second squeeze. What should he let go now - a heart or a diamond for it no longer mattered what he discarded for the declarer would keep squeezing him again and again. Discarding a heart would subject east ultimately to succumb in diamonds. And if east first discards a diamond on the fifth trump, AK of diamonds drops his queen. Declarer comes back to hand with a heart to cash his JD subjecting east again for the third squeeze.
So then what is the winning discards? A tough one no doubt but the right discard is a heart on the fifth trump. True there is a trick loss for sure but no second squeeze for lack of entries.
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W N E S
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- - - 1S
P 2D P 2S
P 4S All PASS
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964 53
K1075 J842
AK742 Q105
K AQ106
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