De Wijs on Defense

SIMON DE WIJS

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Simon de Wijs (1974) is a leading Dutch bridge professional, best known for his long partnership with Bauke Muller. Nationally, he has won multiple Dutch league titles with top clubs such as ’t Onstein and Crash. Internationally, he has been a key member of the Dutch open team for over two decades, winning the European Championships (2005, 2009), the Champions’ Cup (2010), and the Bermuda Bowl world title in 2011, along with the 2022 European Open Teams Championship.

His consistent high‑level play has made him one of Europe’s most respected competitors.

Starting with this IMP issue, we are using an adjusted format. Instead of just discussing leads, we will now focus more on decisions that take place later in the defense. An ideal hand to cover therefore consists of a lead problem, followed by a number of decisions further down the line, all viewed from the perspective of one of the players.

Hand 1

I received this hand from Veri Kiljan. Take his seat as south and play this hand, which came up during the Theseus (Tilburg, The Netherlands) club competition. The format is cross-imps.

N/EW. You hold: K 10 7 5 J 5 4 J 10 6 A 9 4

1 promises four or more diamonds, 2 is natural and game forcing, and the rest speaks for itself. The player on the right may still have a four-card major suit, while the player on the left no longer does, making this look like a 1NT-3NT auction.

The first question, as is often the case with defensive problems: “What do you lead?”

When making a lead, you have two goals: developing tricks and not giving away tricks. Often these goals are conflicting, and that is the case here as well. A spade lead has the most potential for developing tricks, but it also gives away a trick most often. With a five-card suit, the positive potential is so substantial that you don’t look any further, but with a four-card suit, it is often good to lead passively. If we disregard a lead in one of their suits, is an active spade or a passive heart preferable? And to what extent does the presence of J play a role in this decision?

We put Bridge Compass to work on it. For this hand, a small heart is the winner with a 17% chance of defeating the contract, compared to only a 13% chance for a small spade. If we remove J, the heart lead becomes even more attractive, as there is less chance of giving away a trick in that suit, with a 21% chance of defeating 3NT compared to 16% for the spade lead. Oddly enough, in all scenarios, it is better not to have J and to spend our limited values in defense on other face cards.

Finally: if we replace K with J, so that you give away a trick much less often with that lead, then the heart and spade leads end up tied at the top with 16%. In that case, I would definitely lead spades, because it often makes defense easier for partner when we lead our best suit.

It was not the first time in his life that Veri had to lead. He passed this test with flying colours and led 4, after which the following dummy was placed on the table:

Trick 1: 4, 7, 8, 9

As an aside: we all play third hand high when necessary. Here, of course, partner will never play the king, because he would give away a trick if declarer has the ace and partner has the Jack.

Another point: sometimes you know that playing your highest card is pointless because the card you play is too low. In that case, within our agreements, we switch to count signals. To make things a bit clearer for partner, we agreed on the 9 as the limit. If the highest card you can play is lower than the 9, we play count, but if you play the 9 or higher, you are blocking without saying anything about your count in that suit. Those kinds of considerations didn’t play a role here for Veri and his partner, so for the moment, you have no information about the number of hearts.

The declarer thinks for a moment and plays spades.

Trick 2: 3, 5, Q, 4

By agreement, many pairs show suit preference in the first suit which declarer plays, showing a preference between the two remaining suits, in this case clubs and diamonds. You played your lowest spade because you have A and not much in diamonds, and your partner does the same. Naturally, you are less certain of his signal because judging from the play the declarer appears to have spade length, meaning your partner does not have many cards to choose from. Low of a doubleton can also be neutral. The declarer continues with diamonds from dummy.

Trick 3: 9, 7, 3, J

The suit-preference moment has passed; we have said what we wanted to say, and from this moment on, we play count, high-low = odd. To defeat the contract, we assume declarer holds only four diamonds.

How do you continue the defense?

Ideally, we want partner to play spades so we can force out A from dummy. Due to partner’s signal, but certainly also because the declarer himself has not played clubs, we have high hopes for partner’s V. So, we play clubs: small card, because we do want partner to play his queen.

Trick 4: 4, 5, Q, 2

That’s going well. Partner isn’t naive either and knows what is expected of him: he plays 9, small for the declarer. Which spade do you play?

As a quiz question, this is easier than at the table, where you have often already happily played small. After all, playing 10 costs a trick in the spade suit. Nevertheless, this was necessary because the declarer on this hand, Thomas Michielsen, thought for a moment and also played low in dummy.

Trick 5: 9, 6, 7, 2(!)

The whole deal:

Partner has no spades left and plays diamonds. Declarer continues with 10, which you must duck, and now he has several winning options. At the table, he let 10 hold and cashed two diamonds, putting you in a bind. After your heart discard, declarer crossed to dummy in spades to play Q for nine tricks. Nicely done.

What you should have done is sacrifice 10. That forces A out. Then you can take 10 and exit in spades. You then make two club tricks, a diamond trick, a spade trick, and right at the end a heart trick for one down. All easy to see in hindsight, but oh so difficult in practice.

Hand 2

For the next hand, we move from one bridge club to another and end up at Crash in Leiden (Butler). I participated myself as well, but this hand was provided by Chris Westerbeek and Mark Thiele.

N/NS. As south, you hold: J 4 A J 9 A K 9 J 10 9 6 5

The bidding is not of much interest here, nor is the lead: we kick off with the jack of clubs.

Trick 1: J, 4, 7, K

In the first trick the primary signal is on/off, and so it is here. With his club spots, partner therefore indicates whether he has a club honour. 7 can thus be the highest of two or three small ones. Partner could also have A if he has exactly A7-doubleton.

The declarer plays diamonds and you must decide immediately: take or duck?

Not the most difficult decision, because the only reason to take would be to keep the declarer at zero diamond tricks if he has a doubleton. In that case, declarer has three or more clubs and Q will always be an entry. So, we duck the first diamond trick.

Trick 2: 7, 9, Q, 5

Just like on the previous board, we play here with the agreement to show suit preference in the first suit the declarer plays. There are exceptions to that general rule, however, and an important exception is that you show count if there is a long suit without an entry in dummy. In that case, it is crucial to know how often you must duck. Does that exception apply here? Without the queen of clubs, certainly, but now that the queen of clubs is in dummy, it is a matter of interpretation. Personally, I look at my club holding, and if I am not behind it with a higher card, I view Q as an entry. Chris and Mark were on the same page here and interpreted north’s first diamond as suit preference, meaning a preference for spades.

The declarer continues diamonds.

Trick 3: J, 2, 6, K

You naturally continue with clubs, which declarer takes with the queen in dummy, after which he plays hearts to his king, for your ace.

Trick 4: 9, Q, 3, 2

Trick 5: 6, 5, K, A

Perhaps we should have ducked K, but you didn’t out of fear of partner having Q, so you have to work with the information available.

We now know for sure that declarer has only two diamonds. With a three-card suit, he would have freed up the diamonds. It is a bit unclear why declarer didn’t play hearts immediately instead of diamonds, but we have to make do with it. You, on lead with A, now have a final decision to make: do we simply clear the clubs, or is there a situation you can imagine where you have to do something different?

Yes, there certainly is. partner has signalled spades. If he has KQ-fifth in that suit, we must play J, which the declarer must duck, after which we clear the clubs after all. If partner has A and the declarer KQ, then switching to spades is not good. In that case, we must clear the clubs first and take A at the very end to defeat the contract.

A question that has not yet been asked is: what does partner’s second diamond mean? We know that partner still had 32 left. Some pairs switch to count after their suit-preference signal. Given that agreement, there are two variations: current or original count. In other words: you play high-low = equal count of what you have left or of what you originally had. The former is the way Bauke and I play it. Chris and Mark do things differently; they keep showing suit preference and use the remaining cards as nuance to the first signal.

With the first diamond, Mark therefore indicated that he has something in spades, and that signal is consistent with both A and K. If you then throw a high diamond the second time as well, you strengthen the argument to switch to that suit. Too subtle for a Wednesday club night, because Mark had played the two od diamonds, and Chris therefore decided to continue clubs.

The complete board:

Afterwards at the bar, Chris and I quickly agreed that 2 was the culprit. Mark slunk away disappointedly…

PS The declarer did not play the contract optimally, which we had already realized during the defense. Playing the second diamond gave away a crucial tempo.

Bauke also played the hand in 1NT and started in the same way. When Q won the trick, he did not continue the suit but played hearts immediately. This gave him an extra tempo so that he was not in danger and eventually ended up with an overtrick.