Category Archives: Exercises: Defensive Play
Here is an interesting defensive hand from a recent game. Put yourself in the East seat:
East
North opened the bidding two clubs. South responded two diamonds (waiting). North’s rebid was 2NT (22-23 HCP). Souith raised to 3NT. Finding the right defense was difficult. What would you lead from the East hand?
Time to count: You have 12 points, declarer has 22-23, dummy should have 3+, and partner will be lucky to have so much as one jack.
Knowing from the bidding that partner is probably broke and that opponents have shown no interest in the majors, East should consider a heart attack on opening lead. But which card? I recommend the king* of hearts. Partner will give you attitude when she follows suit. You lead the king, and this is what you see in dummy:
Dummy
When you see Dummy come down you realize that South got a bit too aggressive when she bid 3NT. It’s not a percentage contract, and there is hope for your side. You can now place Partner with two or three points. Partner plays the encouraging seven, and declarer follows with the six. Now what? Do you play the ace or lead the eight, hoping partner has the queen?
My take is that you should cash the ace. It’s more likely that declarer, rather than partner, holds the queen. Partner has no entries, and you may be able to drop the doubleton queen. If partner happens to hold the queen, nothing is lost.
*The recommended lead from A K J 9 is the ace, asking partner to play her highest card. That will let East know if the suit will run. But your heart holding isn’t good enough for that (8 rather than 9).
Here is a fun little mini-puzzle for you. Spades are trump and lead is in the South hand. Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to take eight tricks against any defense. Enjoy:
This one isn’t as hard as last month’s Double Dummy puzzle from hell. You are South in 6NT and opening lead is the queen of hearts. Take 12 tricks against any defense. Enjoy:
Your partner opens one club in 2nd seat. Right-hand opponent overcalls one diamond. You respond one heart with a nice 10 points:
You
Left-hand opponent passes, partner rebids two clubs, and right-hand opponent rebids two diamonds. That’s where the bidding ends.
You lead the ace of clubs and see this dummy:
Dummy
Partner encourages with the eight of clubs, so you continue with the nine of clubs to partner’s king. Now partner continues with the deuce of clubs, queen of clubs from declarer, and you ruff with the five of diamonds. What do you do next?
Larry Cohen provides some guidance on his site: https://www.larryco.com/bridge-articles/defensive-signals-signaling
Left-hand opponent opened one club in 1st seat. Her partner responded one heart. Opener’s rebid was one spade. Responder then closed out the auction with one notrump. Your side was silent. Here is your hand:
What is your opening lead against one notrump? Please give me your thoughts in the comments or by email.
As I watched our Swiss Teams last week, I noticed that intermediate players are not routinely giving partner count on defense. Here is one such situation when you are defending a notrump contract:
Partner has made the typical opening lead from a long suit that she would obviously like to set up. Subsequently you are in and are ready to return her suit. As you do so you would like partner to know the number of cards you presently hold in her suit. Why does that matter, and which card do you play when returning her suit?
It matters because partner wants to discern if the suit is ready to run and if there are any remaining impediments to getting all your available tricks. You can convey that information by the card you choose.
This example from a recent hand should clarify. I was in 3NT and West gets the defense off to a great start by leading the four of hearts:
I can see right away that I am going down. EW know from the bidding that I hold two or three hearts, and I know they are going to continue the suit. I know hearts are 5-4, although I cannot tell whether it is West or East who started with five hearts. EW are going to cash four hearts and the ace of clubs. My only hope is that somehow they manage to block the heart suit.
East wins the ace and is ready to return a heart. Do you see why it’s important for West to know how many hearts East has? It’s important because, as the card lie, West will need to play an honor under my king or else the heart suit it blocked. If West can discern that East is returning a heart from a present holding of four hearts, she will know it’s necessary to hold onto the seven. Otherwise she cannot get back to East’s hand, so that East can cash the last heart.
Which card should East play, so that West knows to unblock an honor? Playing a low card from you present holding shows an odd number, and playing the highest card you can reasonably afford (not the eight!) shows an even number. In this case East should return the six of hearts to let partner know she presently holds four hearts.
What happened in real life? West played the seven under my king and the hearts were blocked. I made an underserved 3NT.
You are West on lead after this auction:
Here is your hand:
What card do you choose and why? Is it best to make an attacking lead or should you go passive and lie in wait with those nice diamonds? How many spades does declarer have? How many spades does partner have? Scroll down to read my recommendation.
I would go passive and lead a spade. You are unlikely to win a spade triick unless partner has the ace. Opponents have a 8-card fit in spades. Sit back with the KJ10 of diamonds behind the big hand. Your Q9 of hearts and even the 10 of clubs may be useful to your side on defense. Make declarer do all the work.
Your left hand opponent opens one spade. Partner passes and right hand opponent responds 2NT (alerted as a game forcing raise with at least four spades). The bidding ends when left hand opponent bids four spades (fast arrival with a minimum opening bid). It’s your lead holding:
Here is where I see too many players go wrong. You’ve probably heard “never underlead an ace against a suit contract. But if you really think it’s the suit to lead, then plunk down the ace”. That’s great advice. Don’t underlead one of your aces!
But coupled with that advice is “it’s usually not a good idea to plunk down an ace on opening lead, because aces are meant to capture kings and queens. When aces are led, they instead draw deuces and treys.” For your hand in this problem do you see any reason to lead one of your aces?
I don’t. There seems to be no reason to be in a hurry with your aces. It looks like you will always get two tricks with them. I suggest going passive and leading a trump. The opponents have nine trumps and it’s unlikely that your side has a trump trick. Make declarer do all the work.
When I saw this hand played the opening leader plunked down his two aces, and declarer made four spades even though partner had one sure trick. Had opening leader instead saved those aces, he would have captured the king of clubs with his ace, setting up another trick for the defense. Leader’s mistake on the first two tricks cost his side a swing of 15 IMPs!
Your left hand opponent opens the bidding with two hearts, partner passes, and right hand opponent raises to four hearts to end the bidding. Partner leads the ace of spades (ace from ace-king) and you see this huge dummy:
Your crummy hand:
Dummy plays a low spade. What spade do you play and why?
When I saw this hand played defender played the deuce of spades and then played the five as partner cashed the king. Low-up told partner that defender had an odd number of spades. Instead defender should play the five and then the deuce (high-low) to convey an even number to partner. Partner correctly decided to give up on a possible spade ruff and did not continue spades at trick three. Defender never did get a ruff. Defender’s wrong signal resulted in a bottom board.
See undate below.
South opens 1NT ins 1st seat and North raises to 3NT. You must choose a lead from this hand:
You have only 4 points, so it’s likely your partner is not broke. How best to get partner off to the right start?
Here is one I did not concentrate well enough on yesterday (I will get to the bidding and declarer play posts tomorrow).It’s board 20.
Here is the entire hand:
I lead a low spade against East’s 1NT contract. Partner plays the king and declarer wins the ace. Declarer starts the clubs and I hold off until the second round, partner showing out. I was worried about getting our tricks before declarer used his ace of hearts as an entry to the good clubs. But I wasn’t paying attention. I should be able to “see” that declarer has the clubs blocked. I need to remove the ace of hearts entry immediately to prevent him from taking that 4th club trick. I sure failed to use calories on this one!
Hi, all:
I have three posts based on yesterday’s game. The first one is on defensive strategy.
I was South declaring 3 spades on board 2 after the following bidding:
Here is the entire hand:
I chose to overcall two spades rather than using the Michaels cue bid of two clubs, since my hand was in the intermediate range of 12 to 15 HCP. I was in the top of that range, so decided to raise to three spades to head off competition in the minors.
West made the good lead of the club king. How do you think East should defend?
East should be delighted with her trump stack, and should encourage continuation of clubs by playing the club six. The idea is to pump declarer (shorten his trump suit so that he loses control). That way it’s difficult to make three spades without looking at the hands. From the bidding declarer can “see” the missing high cards in East’s hand, in particular the ace of hearts and king of spades. What declarer cannot see, however, is the four-zero trump break.
BTW, notice that I could have made three spades by ducking the first three club leads. Dummy can ruff the 4th club, and careful play holds the opponents to three club tricks plus the ace of hearts.
Board 9 provides another lesson in defensive strategy.
North arrives in 3NT on this bidding:
East leads the four of hearts from this crummy holding and observes this dummy:
It’s a good lead from the unbid suit, hoping to find your partner (who is not as broke as you are) with length and an entry after it’s set up. Partner plays the queen and North wins the ace of hearts. Next he finesses the queen of clubs which loses to the king. Back come the seven of hearts from partner which loses to North’s king. Dummy now runs the remaining five clubs. What do you discard from your hand on the last three clubs?
Do you remember the bidding? Hold on to those diamonds for dear life! Discard two hearts and a spade. Don’t give away overtricks at matchpoints by letting declarer set up his diamonds. This is known as maintaining parity with declarer.
Here are two more. These are more difficult. Please give me your thoughts in the comments.
Exercise 5. West’s Lead against contract of 2NT by South:
You are West holding:
Bidding:
Usually you would like to lead a heart from that nice holding with an outside entry. But the opponents may very well have the ace and jack of hearts, so your entry may be driven out before the hearts set up. You would like to get your partner in to lead a heart. Would you consider leading your singleton club? It’s unusual to lead a singleton against NT. How about a diamond? Your opening lead and why?
Exercise 6. East’s Lead against contract of 1NT by North:
You are East holding:
We had a good time discussing these three problems yesterday morning. Prior to talking about the problems, we reviewed the detective work involved in deciding on the correct suit to lead.
Exercise 4. East’s Lead against contract of Three Diamonds by North:
You are East holding:
Bidding:
Your opening lead and why?
This one’s pretty easy. I will post the other two a little later today. You’ll find them more controversial.
Exercise 3. North’s Lead against contract of Four Hearts by West:
You are North holding:
Bidding:
Your opening lead and why? Feel free to opine in the comments.
Exercise 2. North’s Lead against contract of 1NT by West:
You are North holding:
Bidding:
Your opening lead and why? Feel free to opine in the comments.
Eight of us had a lot of fun discussing possible opening leads yesterday morning. It’s not surprising that there was no consensus on which alternative lead would be best. Here is the 1st exercise. I will post the other two later today. Feel free to opine in the comments.
Based on the criteria for opening leads, rate a couple of possible leads for each of these exercises.
Exercise 1. East’s Lead against contract of 1NT by North:
You are East holding:
Bidding:
Your opening lead and why?
Wednesday’s lesson’s emphasis was unblocking on defense. Most players have no problem unblocking as declarer, because in that case they can see the dummy with their own eyes. Unblocking on defense requres you to “see” partner’s suit holding based on clues from the bidding and lead. Here are some examples from the lesson. In each exercise what card would you play and what is your plan from there?
Exercise 1. Defense against 3NT:
You are the South defending West’s 3NT contract. Your partner (North) leads the K of diamonds. Declarer calls for the diamond 3 from East. Here is the layout that you can see with your own eyes in the diamond suit:
Opponents have reached 3NT effortlessly, so you can assume that partner is pretty weak in the other three suits. Your plan?
Exercise 2. Defense against 3NT:
You are the South defending West’s 3NT contract. Your partner (North) leads the Q of clubs. Declarer calls for the club 2 from East. Here is the layout that you can see with your own eyes in the club suit:
Opponents have reached 3NT effortlessly, and you only have the three points you can see. That means your partner may have an entry outside of the club suit. Your plan?
Exercise 3. Defense against 3NT:
North and South are defending East’s 3NT contract. North opened the bidding with two spades. East overcalled 2NT, and South raised partner to three spades. West bid 3NT, and that ended the bidding.
You (South) hold Q 9 2 of spades. You are going to lead your partner’s bid suit, right? Yes, right! What card do you select and why?
I will put solutions to these three exercises in an update on Friday. In the meantime please give these puzzles a try in comments.
Here is an opening lead problem from yesterday’s game. Your right hand opponent passes in 1st seat, and you open the bidding with one heart holding:
Left hand opponent passes, partner passes, and RHO overcalls one spade. You pass and LHO raises to two spades, which is passed out. Bidding summary:
What is your opening lead and why? Please give me your thoughts in the comments.
Update: Your partner is broke, so best is to go passive and lead a club. Make declarer do all the work. Each time you are in continue to lead clubs unless something else comes to light.