TIPS FOR TOPS by
Curt Soloff
Devastating Defense:
How to take all the tricks you have coming
Sometimes you are so excited
to give partner a ruff that you are actually helping declarer without realizing
it. Consider the following deal from a
recent club game at Denver Metro, where South missed an opportunity to be a
defensive hero and go plus on the board:
Dealer: N; NS Vul
North East South West
P P 1♠ 2♣
P P 2♦ 2♥
3♦ 3♥ All
pass
Opening lead: ♠T
As South, here is what you
see (deal rotated to show dummy at top):
♠ Q987
♥
K6432
♦ T2
♣ KT
♠
AK653
♥
--
♦
A9764
♣
Q87
First, what have you learned from
the auction? Try to piece together
declarer’s hand as well as partner’s. Declarer is known to have 5+ clubs and
exactly 4 hearts. Partner failed to bid
over 2♣ but freely raised diamonds later, so she has at least four card support (your 2♦ bid only promised four of them).
The opening lead looks like a
high card from a doubleton, but could be a singleton. So it seems that declarer’s hand pattern is 2-4-2-5,
3-4-1-5 or perhaps 2-4-1-6. You win the
♠K at trick one and follow with the ♠A, declarer playing the J and
partner following with the 4. That clears
up the spade situation, and you know that both declarer and partner can ruff
the next round of spades. What next?
Cash the ♦A!
Playing your diamond winner
now serves two purposes:
(1) It allows you to get a signal from partner
(2) More importantly, it prevents declarer from pitching a
diamond loser when you eventually play another spade for partner to ruff/overruff
On this deal, partner holds
five diamonds and is fairly confident that another diamond will get ruffed and
trumps drawn, so she will discourage that suit and you can go back to
spades. Once the diamond winner is
cashed, declarer no longer has a useful pitch and will be forced to ruff high
(from ♥ QJT5), promoting another trump trick for North, who started with
♥ A987. Note that if partner had
only small trumps that could not be promoted, she would go ahead and encourage
the diamond continuation just in case declarer started with a doubleton
diamond. Never underestimate the value
of those spot cards!
The moral of the story:
If both declarer and partner are out of a suit, cash
your side suit winner(s) before providing partner with a ruff
.