An Interesting Defensive Problem

[OliverC]

This was an interesting hand that Eszter and I played today:


You are North at NS Game, and the Dealer is East.

North
  J652
  AKQ98
  6
  AK5

Bidding
East     South     West     North
1       No          1        2
5       No          No         X
All Pass


Partner leads the Jack of Hearts and Dummy goes down

Jack led
                      West (Dummy)
                      A10743
                      7542
                      J5
                      76
North
  J652
  AKQ98
  6
  AK5

You overtake the Queen of Hearts but Declarer ruffs and leads the Queen, which is covered by Partner and taken by Dummy's Ace. The 7 is now led from Dummy. You rise with the Ace (Partner plays the 3 and Declarer the 2) and lead a Diamond, which runs round to Partner's 9 and Dummy's Jack. Another Club from Dummy follows. How do you plan your defence?

Clearly Declarer has a load of Diamonds and is aiming to ruff a Club. You may or may not have a Spade trick to come, but if that trick is available it's never going away. In practice the lead of the Queen at trick 2 strongly suggests a Singleton, because with Qx they'd be more likely to leave off the Spades and hope a defender leads away from the suit later in the hand.

Your problem is that you have no more Diamonds to lead and no possible way to get Partner in via a Major. Partner's 3 on the first Club is showing an odd number in the suit, so obviously 3 or 5. If the Queen is indeed a singleton, then Declarer is either 7-5 or 9-3 in the Minors. Clearly if Declarer has 9-card Diamonds, then Partner will not have a Diamond left to lead either, so there's no point in defending on that basis.

If Declarer has 5 Clubs, then a single ruff in Dummy will suffice to clear the suit, so your only hope is to DUCK the second Club and hope that Partner has the Queen and can lead a second round of trumps. If Declarer turns out to have the Queen of Clubs, then there's almost certainly no way to beat the contract.