Defensive Play FIFTEEN

[han]

One thing I am wondering. Is it normal for a/e players to spend this much thinking to plan out how they will defend if declarer shows up with a card that partner has ostensibly shown with his signal? For example if my partner lays down a queen on opening lead (with no evidence of shortness). Should I spend a large amount of thinking to plan out my contingency if declarer later leads the jack from hand? Is that how I need to be thinking to advance? Or should I assume partner has the jack *until* declarer plays it, and then rethink?

 

This is a great question. What do you think about when declarer or partner is thinking about what to play?

 

Generally you don't think along the lines of "what shall I do if declarer does this or that". What you should focus on is trying to figure out what everybody has. That's what you should do on this problem too. If you know what everybody has then you can try to figure out how the play can go and what you should be careful about (here: covering). You can only figure this out if you realize what's going on (or, what has to be going on in order to beat the contract).

 

In some situations you really should be prepared though. A common situation is a suit contract when dummy has a singleton. Partner leads, dummy wins trick 1 and is about to lead the singleton, will you play high with the ace? By doing so you make take away a guess (if declarer has KJ) or leave a finessable position (if declarer has QJ10x). But by ducking you might give away the contract. If you have to think before ducking you give away the contract anyway.

 

Another situation is when declarer leads up to the king-jack in dummy and you, sitting in front of dummy, hold the ace. Do you duck? Quite similar, if you have to think about it then you might give away a trick.