Most bridge players and writers will tell you that defending is more difficult than declaring, but just because there is a consensus doesn't mean it isn't close. Both have advantages and disadvantages: All three active players can see two hands and the opening lead once dummy comes down, but declarer has the advantage of being able to coordinate two hands: defenders do not have this option and occasionally misuse their resources. Often a defender will play a high card and drop a high card from partner's hand; or choose not to play a necessary high card for fear of doing so. No declarer ever accidentally wastes high cards; if declarer leads a king from his hand and dummy has the singleton ace in the suit, it is done for some specific reason and not accidental (maybe declarer wants to remind himself to ruff the rest in dummy and not try to cash the king later).
The defenders, though, also have advantages. The opening lead, blind as it is, can be a crucial advantage when the correct suit (or, far less often, the correct card) is chosen. But the real advantage that defenders have comes in clues the auction provides, and not only from lead-directing bids and doubles. The bids that the declaring side makes can be telling clues in working out who has what and what to do. You need only listen and understand the opponents' bidding and work out as much as you can from what you see and what you are told.
Once many years ago, I played low at trick one despite holding the A♥ after a 2NT - 3♣, 3♠ - 3NT auction, because partner's J♥ opening lead clarified the position of every highcard in the deck! Declarer had 20 points, dummy had 11, partner had one (the led J♥), and I had the remaining 8. Declarer's 3♠ promised a five-card spade suit and if I won the first trick with the A♥, dummy would be left with ♥KT9 (after covering the jack with the queen), three sure winners, and by visualizing the missing high cards in declarer's hand I could count declarer with 11 cashing tricks once the ace of hearts was out. On that eleventh trick I would be squeezed, forced to give up on one of my high cards to give declarer a twelfth. Ducking the first trick forced declarer to look elsewhere for tricks, and he ended up with only eleven!
The strategy declarer chooses for playing the hand will often give you key clues about where missing highcards are and what the distribution is. If declarer sets up for a cross-ruff, it means he doesn't think there are as many tricks available by pulling trumps, and gives you a lot of clues about the distribution as well. If declarer makes an unexpected play, try to find a reason and you will have worked out a lot of the key details if you figure it out!
The defenders can also help one another during the play with signals. Defensive plays may be broken down into categories. The most important is competitive plays versus possible signals. We all know, more or less, about defensive signals. Few understand that a defensive card can almost never be a signal if the person who plays it is trying to win the trick. If you lead the 6♥ against 3NT and dummy has ♥87 and plays the seven, partner's play of the nine may look like an encouraging signal, but think again: declarer could win the first trick with the seven if partner plays low. If the nine is encouraging and promises a higher card in the suit, partner should be playing it!
Right away, by getting you to recognize cards that are attempts to win tricks and cards that are not, we have removed about half the cards your partner plays from your consideration as a possible signal. And those who love to use signals may rejoice at this: five to eight cards per deal that you don't have to remember in case a further card in the suit may clarify it as a high or a low signal. Not so fast! Remember, it's all about tricks. You may not need to consider partner's card as a possible signal, but you do need to remember it in the context of which heart cards are played and which cards in the suit are high. Watch:
Dummy ♥ 87
You: ♥ AQT65
In notrump, you led the fourth-best six and declarer won in hand with the jack. Declarer later leads the other heart from dummy and partner discards; declarer's king is won by your ace. You cash the queen and the ten, but is the five good? Counting out the suit, you know declarer started with five hearts because partner had only one. The eight and the seven were in dummy. Do you remember partner's card? (Hint: this would be an easier question if you thought about it when partner showed out instead of waiting two more tricks before deciding.)
The number one skill on defense is always keeping track of the cards in each suit, especially the ones you have and the ones partner is assumed to have. How many cards in each suit are winners? How many can be promoted into winners? How many are guarding an honour and cannot be discarded? No signalling system in the world will overcome tricks that are lost because defenders are not keeping track. It's all about tricks!
Now. You may form a picture in your mind of fifty-two scattered face-up cards on a table and think it is just too long a road from where you are now to remembering all of them as the play proceeds. And if you begin with the idea that every card needs to be remembered as it is played, it will be a long road indeed. The better way to proceed is to start from the top and work down. We all can remember aces and kings, and usually queens and jacks in the important suits. That's a start! Slow expansion from there will get you fewer and fewer lost tricks due to uncertainty about where cards are. The key is slow expansion. Players who decide "I am going to remember every card starting now" will fail miserably and slow the game down as they agonize over the data flooding their brain. Players who decide "I am going to try to distinguish important cards and remember them" do far better, increasing their awareness little by little, for many puzzles quickly become obvious and no memory need be expended upon them. The player who makes this key distinction gets steadily better like a plane on a controlled ascent, while the other player, who wants to remember everything, stalls his jet at the key moment.
Once you accept this and make your first priority counting potential tricks, rather than watching for signals, your results will improve. And, you'll have an easier time figuring out which cards partner plays are signals, because (with rare exceptions) you can't signal while winning or trying to win a trick.
So, having denigrated signals a bit, let's look at them in more detail. There are three main types:
1) An ATTITUDE signal is the play of a higher card than necessary to express approval for the suit led, while the lowest card in the suit led discourages that suit. The positive message is not 'lead this suit if you get in or our partnership is over,' it is more like 'this suit is safe from what I can see, continuing it later will not hurt us, but if you have a better idea, go for it.' The negative message is not 'if you continue this suit I will never speak to you again,' but more of 'I have limited help in this suit for developing possible tricks.' Many play this signal and seldom play the others. But there are others:
2) A COUNT signal tells partner how many cards you have in the suit: a high-low sequence shows an even number, two, four, or rarely six; low-high shows an odd number, one, three, five, or rarely seven.
The count signal doesn't help much unless partner actually counts. Knowing your partner has an odd number allows you to work out that declarer has an even or odd number based on what was in your hand and in dummy. If you have four hearts, dummy started with two, and partner promises an even number, declarer is odd, and you can likely guess whether partner has two and declarer has three, or partner has four and declarer one. But if that's not something your partner does, the count signal won't help you at all.
Many expert pairs play count signals more often than attitude signals: these pairs are relying on logic to place the missing highcards and signals to gauge the distribution. For most of us mortals that is more thinking than we can handle.
3) A SUIT PREFERENCE signal shows preference among the other suits: a high card asks for a higher-ranked suit, a low-card asks for a lower-ranked suit, and very rarely, a middling card asks for the mid-rank suit when the choice is among three suits. Usually the suit led and the trump suit are out of consideration and it is only a choice of two suits. Some people are better than others at working these out at the table; I have (sadly) played with players who always got them wrong somehow, and others who seemed to think every signal was suit preference.
One common situation is when partner leads an ace on opening lead against a trump contract, and dummy hits with a singleton in that suit. If you lead the A♠ against 4♥ and dummy has a singleton spade, you know partner does not want this suit continued, and you know that the number partner or declarer holds is not important. What is important is which suit partner prefers at trick two. If partner plays the 8♠, it looks like partner prefers diamonds over clubs; if partner plays the 2♠, it looks like clubs is the choice, although partner may just be making the lazy play.
With all of these signals, often partner will need to see another card of the suit from your hand to confirm whether your middling card was high or low. The signaller can help partner out by making sure, when playing high on the first or second round, to play the highest card that is not needed to potentially affect a trick. If you have 8752 and you are making a count signal, the 5 may be misread. Play the eight. What have you got to lose?
With three possible signals to give, which should you choose? The standard is: attitude unless it is clear partner does not need to know your attitude, then count unless suit preference is clearly more important (rare). This leads to a few basic rules:
So the answer is, yes, defending is harder, but far more interesting and satisfying when you get it all right and get an extra trick or two (especially if you've doubled). Just remember: it's all about tricks!
Here is an interesting defense problem where you'll be surprised how much you can work out:
Not much to go on. Sorry about that.
Partner's 7♣ at trick one cannot be an encouraging signal, must be a count signal, showing an even number of clubs. Declarer's rebid of 2♣ therefore must be a four-card suit, headed by the ace-king, probably AK98.
Declarer opened 1♦ before rebidding 2♣. This could be a four-card suit, but with ♣AK98 it seems unlikely: most players will open their best minor with 4-4, to suggest a lead if partner is on lead later. So we can give declarer at least five diamonds.
Declarer responded to the 2♥ rebid from responder with 2NT, but did not rebid 1NT. After a fourth-suit forcing bid in this sequence, declarer will first try to show three-card support for responder's major, then as a secondary goal, show a stopper in the fourth suit. Dummy has ♥AKJ9, so the only card in declarer's hand that could be a stopper is the Q♥. Queen-doubleton would be rather dubious as a stopper, so we can give declarer at least three hearts to the queen. This leaves declarer short in spades, which explains why he did not rebid 1NT originally.
(I cannot stress this enough to newer players: One big step towards better bidding is removing from temptation the idea that you can ever rebid 1NT with a singleton in partner's suit. Remove this temptation and even the rare execution from your auctions, and make sure partner does the same, and you will get to more good spots. If notrump is right, you almost always get a second chance to bid it later: opener bids to describe, and rebidding 1NT with a singleton distorts.)
Now that we've put declarer on something like ♠ x(?) ♥ Q x x ♦ K(?) J(?) x x x ♣ A K 9 8 , we can look at what that gives partner, and the first thing we discover is that partner has five spades. Dummy's spades will control the fifth round, and the fourth as well if partner overtakes our J♠.
Attacking diamonds first probably gives declarer five to the king or even five to the king-jack, leaving four diamonds for partner. Will partner have an entry in diamonds? Possibly, partner may have the J♦ or even four to the eight, which might be a fourth round winner.
How many tricks does declarer have and need? Three clubs, four hearts, and assuming declarer has the K♦, at least one diamond. If declarer has the J♦ we cannot prevent declarer from winning two diamonds. To have any hope of beating this, partner needs the J♦.
That's a lot of information so far, but there is another snag. If you've followed along so far, you're probably coming to the conclusion that the best defense is to grab the ace of diamonds now and switch to spades. But if we play A♠ and a second spade, partner will probably overtake the jack, limiting us to three spades and setting up dummy's spades for additional tricks for declarer. There's a better way. Win the A♦ and switch to the J♠. If partner has the hoped for ♠KQxxx and the J♦, partner will probably let this ride, expecting declarer to win the ace perhaps. When the jack wins, cash the A♠, and exit with the T♦, which declarer will win with the king. Declarer is limited to one diamond trick, and partner is poised to cash three more tricks when in with a spade or the J♦. If declarer plays on clubs, you win the fourth round and lead another club, then a heart and declarer can take the heart tricks, but then must lead a spade to partner and go down.
It's true; declarer might have the K♠, the J♦, or the Q♠, or even six diamonds. But in these cases, 3NT will make easily. Here's the whole hand:
Declarer erred in playing the Q♦ from dummy at trick two. The 9♦ would be better. If partner covers with the jack, all is not lost; partner may have the 8♦ as a later entry.
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