Page 31 - ABF Newsletter August 2025

WORKSHOPS WITH WILL with Will Jenner-O’Shea
THE FORCING DEFENCE
This month’s Workshop focused on defending, with the main focus being on the strategy of defending, not specific things like which card to lead or signal with. Here is the first hand of the lesson, where South played in 4[:
]7543 [432 }J108 {KQJ
]8
[ A K Q J 10 }KQ94
{ A 10 9
West led their singleton diamond, East won their ace, and returned a diamond for West to trump. A seemingly good start to the defence. The defenders won their ace of spades, but after that, declarer won the lead, drew the trumps and made the rest of the tricks. At some tables, West tried the ace of spades first, and then played diamonds, with the same out- come. Here is the full deal:
]7543 [432 }J108 {KQJ
]AKQJ
[9865 [7
}3 }A7652 {8643 {752
]8
[ A K Q J 10 }KQ94
{ A 10 9
If West could have played a low spade to East, then they could have trumped another dia- mond, but their spades were
all higher than East’s spades.
There was a defence to defeat
4[. If West led a spade at trick
one, and then another spade, South
would trump right away. Most defenders would feel like they just had their fingers burned, and never lead spades again. However, the successful defence on this hand was to lead more spades when they regained the lead.
Take a look at the hearts around the table:
[432 [9865 [7
[ A K Q J 10
It doesn’t look like West is entitled to any heart tricks, but if South is forced to trump once, then both South and West will have four trumps. If the defenders manage to lead another spade, and South is forced to trump again, then they will only have three hearts left and West will have four!
West will be able to gain the lead at the end of the hand, and perhaps win some spade tricks.
If one defender holds four or more trumps, then leading long and good suits and forcing declarer to trump is called a Forcing Defence. If you can force declarer to trump once or twice, they sometimes run out of trumps and the hand can fall apart.
The defenders rarely want to lead a suit that can be trumped by dummy using their shorter or weaker trumps.
] 10 9 6 2
Australian Bridge Federation Ltd. Newsletter: August 2025
Page: 31