Defence in Bridge is never easy when as a defender you face a situation where your play would make the difference between victory and defeat for the declarer. This requires imagination, foresight, concentration and of course a continuous table presence that makes you think and work hard at deducing the distribution and location of the cards of both - the declarer and your partner. Sometimes it becomes easier as the cards tell their own story. But most of the time the defender has to depend per force on his partner's signals.
For bridge is a partnership game and the defenders have to find a rapport in complimenting each other with the right signals as they have a common goal. The defensive signals are important in their own right and order of preference. Amongst them the count signal is an important one which if deciphered properly can give the right inference to the other defender to gauge the actual distribution of the hands to play his cards with perfect timing to thwart the declarer's moves for making his contract.
Let us pick today's illustration which is a lesson in defence. Place yourself in the east's seat, holding the cards which will be revealed after the opening lead is made from west on declarer's contract of 4S bid as under:
With NS vulnerable, west opens with the QH and here lies your hand as east above the following dummy spread on your right:
Not surprisingly, west reels of his top 3 heart honours of AKQ to book the contract as everyone follows suit. He next switches to a diamond and the declarer goes up with the ace in dummy as you play 4D and the declarer follows with 5D.
The spade is set for the crucial play in defence when the declarer next cashes the AC on which partner gives 3C and the declarer the 4C. Next a small club is led from the dummy. As east it is now over to you. What do you do? Do you go up with the KC placing south with the doubleton club or do you fear that if declarer holds a singleton club then partner would be holding the club queen 3 carder which would then fall on the next club lead after declarer enters the dummy with a trump to play the club and make it good to park this loser in the diamond suit thus making his contract. In that case you need to play a low club to preserve your club honour in case declarer holds a singleton club.
As east of course you can be swayed to place partner with QC on the inference that if south held the doubleton QC he would most certainly have tried for a club finesse to trap the defender's KC as his only chance to make the contract.
On this reasoning did you as east also play low as did the defender in the actual deal? Well, if you did, you have handed the declarer his contract on a silver platter. How? Let us reason it out. The vital clues lie in the bidding. Remember west passed as dealer and has already turned up with AKQ of hearts and having bid diamonds may have something there too. So it is well-nigh most improbable that he could be holding the QC. This inference also can be picked up by the declarer who would also know for sure that west cannot have the KC and therefore, his only hope lay in putting east under pressure for a guess of his club holding. As east of course all you had to remember was your partner's 3 of clubs that he gave on the ace of clubs with the declarer giving the 4C. The question is where lay the dues of clubs? If partner has it then he holds a doubleton thereby inferring that the declarer holds the doubleton queen of clubs calling for east to play the KC as the right defence on the cards actual layout as the declarer had the double QC. Not taking the KC therefore cost the defender east to lose both his minor kings for when after 2 rounds of trumps, when the JC was led fromthe dummy, both of east's kings in the minor suits simply vanished into thin air.
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W N E S
P P P 1S
2D 3C 3D 3S
P 4S ALL PASS
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North East
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J98 76
432 J109
43 KJ42
AJ1095 K876
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