Assume you’re East, defending against four hearts, and your partner leads a club. You cash the Q-A, South playing the jack on the second round. What would you do next?

It’s not easy to find the right play even if you see all four hands. However, there is no doubt about the correct move at this point if you consider the matter carefully. You should play another club at trick three!

This might seem to be a dreadful play, since it has been drummed into every player that a defender should never present declarer with a ruff-and-discard, and every thoughtful player sooner or later learns that in bridge, words like “never” and “always” don’t mean exactly what the dictionary says they mean.

In the present case, it should be fairly obvious -- from looking at dummy and taking South’s bidding into account -- that there is no real chance of defeating the contract unless declarer has only four trumps.

You should therefore shape your defense to fit that circumstance. If you “play safe” by returning a spade, a heart or a diamond, declarer will force you to win the first, second or third trump lead and will easily score the rest of the tricks.

But if you return a club at trick three, intentionally giving declarer a ruff-and-discard, he cannot make the contract whatever he does. He can ruff in either hand and lead two rounds of trump -- both of which you’d refuse to win -- but he would then have no effective continuation. If he led a third trump, you would win and force him to ruff a club, establishing your last trump as the setting trick. And if he stopped playing trumps, you’d eventually ruff a diamond to beat the contract.

Tomorrow >> Famous Hand.

— Steve Becker