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Pretty Poor Defence
We were discussing the comparative merits of bidding well and declaring accurately when a well-known player cut our interesting discussion short with his matter-of-fact statement: “What you say is of very little importance as most contracts will make with a bad enough defence”.
Let us test this doctrine.
The best North and South can do is a small slam in spades (or notrumps) if they guess the position of the spade jack.
But what about East-West?
How many tricks can East-West take, with spades as trumps, assuming worst defence?
| | ♠ K 10 7 4
♥ K J 8
♦ J 10 3
♣ A Q 10 |
♠ A J 2
♥ 2
♦ 9 8 7 6 2
♣ 8 7 6 5 |  |
♠ 8 5
♥ Q 9 7 6 5 4 3
♦ 5
♣ 4 3 2 | | | ♠ Q 9 6 3
♥ A 10
♦ A K Q 4
♣ K J 9 |
Pretty poor defence - solution
The answer is: surprisingly many. There may be several solutions, but here is one:
1. The defenders contribute the heart jack to East’s queen and South’ ten.
2. West ruffs a heart with the spade deuce . North follows with the king.
3. East wins a diamond trick ( two, three, five, four).
4-7. High hearts by East. South gets rid of his diamonds and a club. West discards his two diamonds and a club.
8. The last heart. Everybody ruffs in, with the nine, jack, and ten.
9-10. West plays diamonds. Everybody discards clubs.
11. A diamond is ruffed with North’s four, East’s five, and South’s three.
12. A club is ruffed with the queen, ace, king...and finally
13. A diamond to East’s spade eight while North and South follow with the trump seven and six.
Thirteen tricks must be more than most of you guessed!
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