The primary goal of a defending pair is to make the most of their combined partnership resources. It follows from this that top-notch defense depends heavily on partnership cooperation.

Consider this deal where West led a diamond against three notrump. Declarer won with dummy’s queen and played the ace and another club, hoping to catch a singleton honor or find the suit divided 2-2.

But West showed out on the second club, discarding a low diamond on East’s queen of clubs. This informative discard indicated that West had lost interest in diamonds, the suit East might otherwise have returned. So East shifted to the six of hearts, ducked by South and won by West with the queen. West then returned a heart, forcing the ace.

Declarer realized that continuing clubs at this point would surely lead to defeat, so he turned his attention to spades, leading the nine. South planned to let the nine ride, and, if the finesse succeeded, he intended to lead the ten next and overtake it with dummy’s jack.

Had everything gone as South planned, he would have finished with 10 tricks. But West threw a spanner into the works by covering the nine of spades with the queen! As a result of this inspired play, declarer was able to score only the A-K-J of spades and so finished with just eight tricks.

It is true that South could have and should have settled the issue at the outset by attacking spades instead of clubs, but this does not diminish the credit due East-West for a fine defensive performance from start to finish.

Tomorrow: A problem of logistics.