Let’s go back, take West’s hand, and look at the defense of the deal, starting with opening lead:
♠K3 ♥8754 ♦K10 ♣AQJ108
When you are on opening lead, the first thing you should do is think about the auction: how many points do the opponents hold between them and what has partner shown, if anything, about his hand. In this case partner hasn’t bid so West can’t even lead his suit.
Then you should think about where your side’s tricks are coming from. Sometimes, when you have a bad hand, and your partner has passed throughout the auction, you will have no idea where your side’s tricks are coming from. But in this deal, when you hold 13 HCP and the opponents are in game, you may well be holding all, or certainly most of the points for the defense. Treat your high cards with care!
Turning to today’s deal, I can only guess why West led her ♠K. Maybe she felt she should not lead one of her low trumps. There are many times when players make an opening lead of a trump, and it is a mistake. West seems to have learned that lesson well. Unfortunately, this deal is an exception to not leading trumps willy-nilly. Looking at just the trump suit, we can see West is not giving up a heart trick from her hand and, assuming South has opened a weak 2♥ with 6 hearts and North raised with 3, her partner is void. She cannot be finessing East out of a heart winner. In this situation, a heart lead is very safe.
Why would she want to make a safe lead? She wants to protect her source of potential tricks in her hand, i.e., her two side kings and the ♣AQ. She can rightly assume Declarer holds at most one ace. While it is likely to be the ♥A, to be on the safe side, she should avoid leading one of her kings in case Declarer might, instead, hold the ace or queen of that very suit. Instead, she should make a safe, or “passive” lead, namely, a low heart. An added benefit is that, with four hearts headed by the 8, she would be expecting her partner to be void in hearts and her partner’s play to the opening lead will tell her what suit partner is interested in, or not, if he makes a negative discard.
After West’s heart lead, Dummy hits. Here are the two hands again for ease of reference:
♠Q9865 ♥AK ♦AQ93 ♣93
♠K3 ♥8754 ♦K10 ♣AQJ108
West discovers Declarer does not hold the ♥A or the K, and that East, in fact, has one heart. She finds out that Declarer can finesse her ♦K. She also must realize that she should never lead clubs. Never. Eventually someone else will have to lead them. She, as a defender, needs to wait for good things to come her way, namely club winners.
After Dummy wins the heart lead, Declarer would lead a low spade, trying to establish a communication link to his hand. East would play the ♠7 and it wins the trick, Declarer playing the 4.
If you are trying to put together Declarer’s hand, that first round of spades tells you almost everything. You now know that Declarer had no spade honors since partner’s 7 won the trick. The only remaining honors which you cannot see are the ♥QJ10, ♦J and ♣K. Declarer must hold the ♥QJ10, since partner’s only heart was the 9. Moreover, unless Declarer is a punch-drunk preemptor, he also holds the ♣K.
Meanwhile, your excellent partner, after winning the ♠7, leads his ♣6. Declarer plays low and you win with the ♣10.
What now? Do not cash the ♣A! Keep waiting!
Partner’s seemingly highest club says he has no club honor, which confirms that Declarer has the ♣K. You do not want to set up his ♣K for a trick, so keep waiting. Once again make a passive exit of a low heart.
Winning the 2nd heart in Dummy, Declarer would play a low spade, ruffing with the ♥Q, and then draw your last two hearts with his ♥J10, discarding spades from Dummy as East discards first a low diamond and then spades, keeping parity with Dummy. Declarer would next lead his ♦J. (Aha! Declarer did have all the outstanding honors. It is fun when you figure out Declarer’s honors, even if it was the easiest case to do that.)
You cover with your ♦K. Indeed, ducking is out of the question as you can see that if you duck by playing the ♦10, Dummy’s last 3 diamonds will be all good, giving Declarer 6 heart tricks and 4 diamonds, and his contract. (If you ask, “What if Declarer has 4 diamonds?”, the answer is that he makes his contract, and you couldn’t stop him.) Declarer now wins 3 diamond tricks as partner can beat Dummy’s low 4th diamond. Although Declarer will get to pitch 1 of his 3 remaining clubs on the 3rd round of diamonds, whatever he does next, he loses 2 more club tricks, and the contract is set.
It was essential for you not to cash your ♣A after winning the ♣10 earlier. You, as West, were key to setting the contract, but you had to wait, and keep waiting until the final two tricks to set it.
The key point is this: when you see that Dummy has two low cards in a suit, in this case clubs, and you hold AQ, do not play the suit unless your partner tells you otherwise through his signals. (Since this is bridge, there is an exception or two, but they are rare and you can ignore them, at least for now.)
Remember: Good thing come to defenders who wait!
Postmortem: For those we are interested in such things, after West’s opening lead of the ♠K, the contract is cold, though Declarer would need an impressive imagination to see how.
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