Partnership Defense

Bridge is a partnership game. In my experience there are generally two wells from which competitive players draw satisfaction in response to this inherent characteristic: Player A loves to argue with their partner after a disaster and prove why they are right and partner is wrong; Player B loves it when they actively help partner to make a winning play and, when that doesn’t happen, they reflect on how they might have helped partner do the right thing.

I’ve certainly been in both relationships at one time or another. One of the things I’ve enjoyed the most about my junior partnership with Jason Chiu is that we usually fall into the latter category. When we don’t reach the optimal spot in an auction or fail to defeat a contract I often hear “I could have” rather than “you should have.” With that in mind, here’s a hand from a match we played last night.



We’ve reached the critical juncture of the hand. The careless defender would reflexively play “3rd hand high” in this position without considering the defense from partner’s point of view. Taking partner’s heart 9 at face value, we know that declarer holds AKQ10 of hearts. Also, declarer’s play in the club suit has marked him with AJ86. Partner is therefore 4243 and—since he must hold the spade A due to declarer having counted out to 16HCP already—it is our job to ensure that he places us with the high diamonds and shifts accordingly when in with the king of clubs. Playing the jack now will allow declarer to win with the ace and leave partner blind after the next trick.

In his book, Killing Defense at Bridge, Hugh Kelsey says, “You must cherish your partner, wrap him up in cotton wool and protect him from the wiles of the declarer and from his own blunders in so far as you can.” So hold off that heart jack! Rather, you should discourage violently with the seven, allow declarer to win with the 10 and sit back and wait for the three words that should be music to any bridge player’s ears – “Nice play, partner!”

I'm sorry to say that I got this play wrong at the table. But, rather than being vindictive I tried a little introspection and saw that I was in the wrong. I hope I’m a better player as a result.

Keeping partner in mind, is there a demonstrably correct way to defend at trick one on this problem, given to me by David Gurvich?