Iftikhar Baqai of Irvine, California, defended well in this deal from the 2025 Roth Open Swiss Teams.
Mitch Dunitz obediently led a heart against four spades after Baqai’s lead-directing double, but rather than put up the ace and return the heart queen as many players would have done, Baqai ducked the first trick in an attempt to keep a link with his partner. Declarer, English international Ben Norton, now had to decide how to continue. We can see that simply drawing trumps according to the percentages, by cashing one top card and then crossing in diamonds to run the spade jack, would work well here, yielding an overtrick, but what if the spade queen were offside? Then the defense would secure two heart tricks and a club in addition.
Norton preferred to combine his chances by first cashing the spade ace and king. If the queen dropped, great. Failing that, he could see if three rounds of diamonds might stand up, whereupon he could eventually get rid of one of dummy’s hearts. Alas, Baqai ruffed the second diamond trick and cashed his hearts. The club ace was the setting trick for the defense.
Had Baqai won the heart ace at the first trick and returned the queen, declarer would have known to take the trump finesse since West, who was marked with no more hearts after leading high-low, was the safe hand. East could not hold the club ace in addition to A-Q-J-x-x in hearts, having passed originally at favorable vulnerability.