A tough defense to get right

Gene Wolfe, who was a science fiction and fantasy author, claimed, “Knowledge is soon changed, then lost in the mist, an echo half-heard.”

Today’s deal is a half-echo of yesterday’s. How can the defenders defeat four spades after West guesses well to lead the heart king, not the diamond king?

The auction was straightforward, North making a game-invitational limit raise and South accepting.

East signaled with the heart nine, so West continued with the heart queen. When that won trick two, West switched to the diamond king. However, declarer won with dummy’s ace, drew trumps, cashed the club ace, played a club to the king and ruffed the club four in his hand. Finally, South exited with his last diamond to West’s queen.

On West’s forced minor-suit return, declarer sluffed dummy’s last heart and ruffed in his hand. (Note that South makes four spades in this way against the diamond-king lead.)

West was a tad miffed with his partner. If East had overtaken the heart queen with the ace and given West a heart ruff, the contract would have gone down. South couldn’t have avoided a diamond loser as well. But was that the right defense? If only West had had an ace, he could have cashed it before leading the heart queen, making the situation clear. Here, it wasn’t obvious.

With K-Q-x of hearts, West might have continued with his low heart at trick two, not the queen. Therefore, do you think that East should have overtaken the queen? If so, wait until you see tomorrow’s deal.