Goren Bridge: What next? 

We are grateful to New York expert Augie Boehm for bringing today’s deal to our attention.

East won the opening diamond lead with his ace as South smoothly followed suit with the queen. South’s false card was a good effort, but East should always recognise it as a false card. The only missing diamond is the seven, and partner would not have led the four from seven-four doubleton. The immediate thought is to give partner a diamond ruff, but what will partner do next? The spades are splitting favourably for declarer, the diamonds are set up for discards, and partner cannot have the ace-king of hearts or he would have led the ace to get a look at dummy. A defender in a matchpoint competition might take the diamond ruff while he has the chance, but that leaves almost no chance to defeat the contract.

The correct defence at rubber bridge, or in a team game, is to shift to a heart at trick two. That might defeat the contract if the partner has the king of hearts and the ace of spades. as he can eventually give you a heart ruff. On this lie of the cards, it pays an added dividend. Partner will take two heart tricks with declarer making another good effort by dropping the king of hearts under the ace. Partner, however, has nothing else to do but continue hearts. You will ruff and finally lead a diamond for partner to ruff and you will defeat the contract by two tricks. Nice defence!