Author Topic: Defensive Ploys  (Read 2166 times)

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Offline OliverC

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Defensive Ploys
« on: January 02, 2018, 04:27:26 PM »
I watched an interesting hand today where the defence was correct, at one table but wrong at the other. Neither defence worked, but it's a good illustration of how you sometimes need to try to mislead Declarer.

Suppose you are South, EW Game, Dealer West. West is my hero Benito Garozzo (sillafu) and East is one of his regular Partners, Tarek Sadek (tsadek). You hold

South
!S J105
!H 93
!D 9832
!C 10742

Bidding (NS silent)
West         East
4 !S           4NT
5 !C           5 !D
6 !S

4NT was RKCB (I think), 5 !C showed 1 or 4 Aces, 5 !D was enquiring about the !S Queen, and 6 !S showed it.

Partner leads a small Heart, and this is what you can see:

!H 5 led
               East (Dummy)
               !S -
               !H AQ76
               !D AKQ8
               !C AQJ85
South
!S J105
!H 93
!D 9832
!C 10742

Declarer goes up with the Ace of Hearts and cashes 3 top Diamonds. Declarer follow to the first of these and discards the 8 and 10 of Hearts on the 2nd and 3rd. Now he cashes the Ace of Clubs and ruffs a Club in his hand. Now he leads the !S Ace and partner follows with the 2....

...If you're not immediately ready with the !S 10, then you have failed the test.

What has Declarer got? Clearly he started with 8 Spades, 3 Hearts and a singleton in each Minor. We know he has the Ace and Queen of Spades from the bidding. He cannot have the King as well as that would have given him 2 Key Cards and you'd currently be sitting through a laydown 7 !S contract. Clearly Partner started out with !S K2. How can you possible get 2 tricks on this hand?

The only possible way is to convince Declarer that you started with !S J10 stiff, by playing the !S 10 on the first round, without any hesitation. That gives Declarer a losing option of playing North for !S K52 and trying to pin your !S Jack on the second round of the suit. If you play a small Spade on the first round of the suit, his only option is to find either defender with the doubleton King.

At Garozzo's table South woodenly played a small Spade and inevitably Declarer brought in 12 tricks. At the other table, the bidding was identical and the sequence of play was essentially similar, except that Declarer didn't touch Clubs but ruffed a Heart after taking the 3 top Diamonds.

Jimmy Cayne (JEC) was sitting South and played the !S 10 on the first round of the suit, but Declarer either wasn't taken in, or decided that the !S 10 was too obvious a ploy, or simply didn't think about it and also led a small Spade on the 2nd round, but that doesn't detract from South's swift play of the 10 on the first round of Spades.

The thing is, misleading plays like this should be almost automatic, in the sense that you need to be working the hand out during the first 4 or 5 tricks. Given that Declarer probably started with 8 Spades, clearly East's top cards will take care of all of his side-suit losers. If Partner started with !S Ax, then the contract is off regardless, so you should only be thinking about partner having !S Kx, and be ready for the lead of the Ace from Declarer.
Oliver