The following hand occurred in a teams of eight Yorkshire League match. The hand is an example of the frequently effective forcing defensive play. It also gives direction on how to counter such plays.

I overcalled South’s heart bid with 2D  but (fortunately) South decided to persist with 2H when this was returned to her. (Notice that a 2D contract will fail by at least 2 tricks after the obvious ten of hearts is led - a good advertisement for the re-opening double perhaps?).

I set off with the King followed by the Ace of Clubs (to show the doubleton) and continued with the Ace followed by the Queen of Diamonds. The declarer played the King of Diamonds and Brian, sitting East, ruffed with the 6 of Hearts. As a result of the ruff South’s 9H is promoted and declarer now has 7 tricks if Hearts can be drawn.

Brian now played the Jack of Clubs through. Declarer is in a bit of a fix now. At the table she ruffed with the 9 of Hearts and was pleased to see that this held the trick when I discarded a Diamond.

Next came the Ace and King of Hearts felling Brian’s Queen and Jack. But now, my 7 of Hearts was master. (Indeed, after Brian had ruffed with the 6 of Hearts the 7 and 5 in my hand were equals and hence the title, “Promotion of the Lowly Five”!).

Declarer did her best at this point by throwing me in with the 7 of Hearts hoping for a Spade return (defensive error) to limit the loss to one down. However, after cashing the Jack of Diamonds I was able to exit with the 8 forcing declarer to ruff who then still had a Spade to lose to Brain’s Queen. Result 2 down and +200 to E-W.

To prevent the trump promotion declarer needs to preserve her Heart holding and refuse to ruff the Jack of Clubs ditching the losing diamond instead. This also neatly turns the tables on the defence by end-playing East in the black suits. East now needs to exit in Hearts to avoid presenting declarer with an otherwise impossible 8 tricks.

To ruff in the long-trump hand reducing your holding to 4 trumps (and with only 2 trumps in dummy), is often a mistake. If you then come up against a bad trump break you could easily lose control of the hand.

The loser-on-loser play ensures an extra trick here. It also gives the defence a chance to go wrong which may result in the contract making after all.

Dave Butler