Logical defence

Aggressive bidding, but aggressive contracts don’t go down by themselves. You have to find a way to defeat them. We occasionally use deals, with his permission, from Larry Cohen’s website. This is one of them.

You are East. You win the opening club lead with the ace as declarer “cleverly” false cards with the king. You know his exact holding, of course, as partner’s lead of the jack denies the queen. What next? Dummy’s diamond spots are pretty good. He should have no trouble setting up a diamond or two for spade discards, so you’d better get after your spade trick.

You shift to the king of spades, which declarer allows to hold the trick. There is danger now that the ace of spades and a spade ruff will set up the spades for diamond discards. Now it is time to get after your diamond trick, if you have one. Partner will need to hold the queen of diamonds plus a trump trick, but if he doesn’t have those things, you are not beating this contract. You must shift to a diamond. Any diamond will do — low or the king — and your good work is done.

You have played a different suit at every turn — not always a good idea for the defence — but it was all suggested by logic. Your efforts are rewarded when partner has exactly what you needed him to have and the contract fails by one trick. Nice defence!