West leads the heart queen—king—ace. How should East defend?

It would appear that your best chance to defeat three spades is to take two hearts, two black aces, and a minor-suit trick in partner’s hand. If that trick is the king of diamonds, you may have to shift to diamonds early. If that trick is king of clubs, however, a diamond shift may allow declarer to discard a club loser from dummy. Unfortunately, partner won’t be of much help. If you continue hearts, partner has no particular reason not to try a third round of hearts.

The solution is to shift to the diamond queen. Even if this gives declarer a diamond trick, he can’t exploit it for lack of a quick re-entry to his hand. Note that you don’t even need to be able to read partner’s signal. If declarer takes the diamond ace and plays a spade, you can win, cash the club ace, and play a heart, letting partner cash his own minor-suit king.

This play isn’t foolproof. If partner has five hearts and the diamond ace (so that you need two diamond tricks to beat the contract), a shift to the diamond queen will raise some eyebrows. Still, I believe the diamond queen is the percentage play. I suppose what appeals to me about this problem is it’s exactly the kind of situation Lowenthal excelled at. I’m sure he would have found the play, and I’m equally sure I would have had five hearts and the diamond ace.

The full deal:

The deal is board 17 from the first session of the 2001 Cap Gemini (except that I switched the king and queen of spades to avoid the complication of worrying about a stiff king of spades in partner’s hand). I have no idea if anyone defended as I suggest.

© 2008 by Phillip Martin