“I REMEMBER one prison I’d still be in if not for my lawyer. It went a lot faster with two people digging.” — an old jailbird’s reminiscence.
Defeating a contract is usually a collaborative effort. Of course, one of the collaborators may be declarer, who misplays.
In a team match, both North-Souths competed to four spades and were doubled. At one table, West led the ace of hearts and shifted to a diamond, after which South’s “sacrifice” could have been a make. But South took the ace of diamonds and went after heart ruffs in dummy: king of diamonds, diamond ruff, heart ruff, diamond ruff, heart ruff, diamond.
East ruffed, and South overruffed and led a club, West took the ace and returned a club, and East, who had discarded clubs on the third and fourth diamond leads, ruffed and cashed his ace of trumps. Down one.
South could succeed by leading the king of clubs at Trick Three. If West won and led another diamond, South could win, cash the queen of clubs and crossruff.
At the other table, East-West didn’t require declarer’s help to beat four spades doubled. West had the diamonds and clubs controlled and knew that East had good hearts. Since North-South seemed to be bidding on distribution, West saw the need to lead trumps, stopping ruffs in dummy.
West didn’t have a trump — but his opening lead was a low heart. East won and cooperated by shifting to the ace and a low trump, and South could take only nine tricks.