Declarer then drew trump in three rounds, ending in his hand, leaving declarer with only 1 more trump. He next attacked the diamond suit, leading his ♦J. West rose with his ♦A immediately and shifted to a low club. Declarer let it ride around to his ♣J, which set up the club suit, So Declarer won a total of 12 tricks: 5 hearts, 3 diamonds, and 4 clubs.
As Declarer seemed likely to play it, the defense may be able to set the contract. First, West should not win his ♦A until the 3rd round of diamonds, cutting Declarer off from Dummy. How does West know it is safe to duck twice? Well, in my non-Life Master days I just hoped it was. But with signaling West can actually know for sure. When Declarer leads the ♦J from his hand East should play his ♦2 (using standard carding), showing an odd number of diamonds: i.e., 1, 3 or 5.
This allows West to get a complete count on Declarer’s hand, which is not always the case when one defender gives his partner count. But it makes this deal particularly good for looking closely at count and how the defenders can use it.
In this situation West is interested in Declarer’s distribution, not East’s (though getting the count on one of their hands automatically allows for count on the other). In general, to use partner’s count signal one has to walk through three steps:
- Go through each option for partner’s diamond holding—here 1, 3 or 5.
- Then, for each option, one has to figure out what that number of diamonds in partner’s hand reveals of Declarer’s holding in the diamond suit.
- Finally, one has to see if the bidding supports that holding for Declarer. (There’s that pesky bidding rearing its head. If this step is not your level now, just give yourself some time. It will be one day.)
As we will see, the bidding only supports partner having 3 diamonds, but let’s work through partner having 1 or 5 diamonds first. If East has 1 diamond, then Declarer has 5 and would have bid 3♦ at his second bid with 0 spades, 5 hearts, 5 diamonds and 3 clubs (0=5=5=3), not 3♣.
Next, if East has 5 diamonds and therefore 5=3=5=0 distribution, he might have overcalled 1♠ or bid 2♥ to show spades and a minor. Furthermore, that would give declarer 0=5=1=7 distribution. With his club suit being longer and stronger (headed by the AK) than his heart suit, he would have likely opened 1♣ rather that 1♥.
Finally, if partner has 3 diamonds, declarer then has 3 diamonds, making his distribution 0=5=3=5, which fits with the bidding nicely. So, Voilà! West can hold up his ♦A till the 3rd round.
Upon winning his ♦A on the 3rd round of diamonds, West should lead a spade. True, Declarer will simply ruff it, but so what? Players can be averse to leading a suit that Declarer can ruff. But in this situation it is somewhat like leading from KQJ10, knowing that Declarer has the A. Yes, with such a suit you will lose to the A, but look at the tricks you have set up after that.
Back to today’s deal, by leading spades West forces Declarer to use his last trump, as well as forces Declarer to win in his hand, thereby setting up West’s ♣Q as a sure trick and entry to his now good spades. Eventually Declarer will have to give West his ♣Q. Then West can lead spades and Declarer can no longer ruff them. If West had done that, Declarer would have only come to 9 tricks—5 hearts (including 2 spade ruffs), 2 diamonds and 2 clubs.
Declarer can do a better job. He can guarantee the contract by only drawing two rounds of hearts, keeping a heart honor in Dummy. Then, leaving the last trump out, he should attack diamonds. Now, even if West holds up on the ♦A until the 3rd round of diamonds, when West wins his ♦A and then leads a spade, Declarer can ruff in his hand, draw the final trump ending in Dummy, and win a 3rd diamond for his 10th trick.
If West holds up his ♦A twice, Declarer has an even better line. Declarer abandons diamonds after the second round, draws the last trump and goes to work on clubs, playing for them to split 3-2. When they do, Declarer will get 11 tricks—5 hearts (including 2 spade ruffs), 2 diamonds and 4 clubs.
Do not let these various lines of declarer play obscure the point to remember: a defender should not have a blanket rule to avoid letting Declarer ruff the defenders’ long suit. Sometimes, it may just be the way to get a good result, whether it is setting the contract or holding declarer to the fewest tricks possible.
