Building A Fence

From a Wydaho online game earlier this year...

East Deals None Vul	♠ K J 8 6 ♥ K 9 5 3 2 ♦ 7 4 ♣ 9 8
♠ Q 5 3 2 ♥ A Q J 8 7 ♦ K 3 ♣ Q J	N W E S

WEST	North	East	South
		Pass	Pass
1 ♥	Pass	2 ♦	3 ♣
All pass

You opened 1 ♥ in third seat. Partner's 2 ♦ bid was natural and nonforcing, 1NT would have also been nonforcing per your partnership agreements.

You led the ♦ K, partner played the encouraging ♦ 9. Declarer played the ♦ 5; note that declarer might be concealing a lower diamond. 

What is your plan? What do you lead to the second trick?

It looks like we can beat this contract!  Partner clearly has the ♦ A and can give you a diamond ruff.  That's two diamond tricks, a diamond ruff, your ♥ A... and partner surely must have the ♠ A for her two-level bid. Down one; and if you can get another diamond ruff, or if partner can ruff a heart, even better yet.

What could go wrong? Partner knows you have at most two diamonds; with king-third you would have led low rather than the king. After you lead your remaining diamond to her, she might be concerned that you can't ruff higher than dummy on the third (and fourth) rounds of diamonds. Instead of giving you a diamond ruff, she might lead back a heart, especially if she has only one heart. 

Your lead to trick two?

ANSWER: Cash the heart ace right now, before continuing diamonds. That way, dummy's king will be an obvious deterrent to partner returning a heart. This is known as "building a fence" for partner, keeping her away from an undesirable action. You will have made it clear that you don't want a heart return, and thus you must really intend to ruff diamonds with a trump card higher than dummy's.

THE PRINCIPLE: When partner will have a choice of actions, and one choice would be disastrous, look for ways to remove that choice as a possibility.

There is another advantage to cashing the ♥ A right now: If partner is void in hearts, you'll know right away and will have her ruff out dummy's king later.

What if declarer ruffs the heart ace? Don't worry, that's not going to happen. You have five hearts, dummy has five hearts. If partner had the remaining three hearts, yes, declarer would be void. But that would mean partner didn't raise hearts with three-card support. Partner would not do that to you!

Bonus Minute: This is a cool deal! After seeing dummy and the play to the first trick, you can reasonably determine the exact distribution and honor holdings in the other two hands. I'll cover that in a future post. Try it for yourself now...

-- Ray
Better Bridge in 5 Minutes. Guaranteed! (or the next one is free)