From                  Wednesday Game Archives

                                          Theme                Going Passive

                                          Difficulty            * * *   

                                          Dlr West            None Vul

Partner leads the 4♣, to your King, which wins the trick.  You are playing 4^th best leads, so can place Partner with 4 Clubs, and Declarer with 5.  How do you continue at Trick 2?

SOLUTION

You could persist with Clubs, trying for whatever Club tricks the defense is entitled to, plus the A♦.  But, it hardly seems right to attack Declarer’s long suit, especially when you have Dummy’s long Spade suit under control.  Declarer does not have 9 tricks yet, and this looks like a hand where it might pay not to get over-active.  So, just go passive and return a Heart!  This not-so-obvious defense is quite devastating.  With Diamonds 4-2, Declarer has no way to develop a 9^th trick, at least not without allowing the defense to take 5 tricks first.

On the actual layout, a Spade shift would work equally well, but that would be quite dangerous (Declarer might have Jx, for example).