This week’s deals center around second-chair play in defense, specifically when it is right to flout conventional wisdom and dive in with an ace against suit contracts.
When our first offering cropped up in an online game, West led a trump against four spades. I find that an odd choice, with plenty of safe options and no particular hurry to cut down on ruffs, but it did little harm.
Declarer drew trumps and then ran the club queen to East’s king. East cashed the diamond ace, West discouraging with the two, after which East had little trouble switching to hearts. Two tricks in that suit were enough to set the contract.
Declarer could have been a little more enterprising by working on hearts in the hope of securing a discard if West held the heart jack and a higher heart. Say he overtakes the first trick with the spade ace and leads a heart. If West follows small, declarer inserts the 10-spot, forcing East’s king. Declarer can win a diamond shift in hand and play another heart, after which he discards a club on the heart queen.
On that line of play, West can still defeat the contract by grabbing the heart ace at the second trick and playing a club through. The idea is that clubs can be attacked only from the West hand, and West must do so while the defenders still control the heart suit. The defenders might easily find this line — rising with the heart ace can hardly cost a trick, and a club is the natural shift, given the dummy and declarer’s decision not to go after clubs.