Blum on Bridge Forcing the Declarer
	If you haven't gotten my message the past couple of weeks, let me emphasize that the declarer (unless he's my partner) is my worst enemy at the bridge table. When he says, "Sorry partner, I could have made it" or "If we'd played against another pair, I could have made another trick," I chortle with glee. As I said last week, the greatest charge I get at the table is to properly defend a contract. Incidentally, when you are in a situation to chortle do it mentally to yourself. Never embarrass declarer; as you well know, it could and will happen to you. To be honest, I appreciate a good defense against me and I will tell the defender so. Going back to today's heading, we'll tackle one of its words, "force." To begin, if you must give up the lead at a trump contract it is best whenever possible that the defender makes the declarer win the trick in his hand rather than in the dummy. There's good reason for this. Should declarer be void in your suit he will be forced to use one of his trumps, thereby shortening that suit. Remember - most of the time declarer's long suit trump tricks are always eventually going to be winners, whereas the shorter trumps in dummy will generally become extra tricks when he ruffs small cards from his hand. Of course, most of you realize that you don't want to put the declarer in the advantageous position of having a choice to ruff in either his hand or that of dummy because he is out of your suit in both. As a rule, if you hold four trumps it is best to force declarer to ruff. As a matter of fact should you hold a long and fairly strong side suit, in addition to the four trumps, that hand is quite powerful. Even when his trump suit is so long that he won't be affected by using a trump card, you at least may make him guess about the location of certain important cards. The "forcing ruff" play is a no-lose situation. As usual, there are exceptions to most rules. When you find a long suit that can easily be established in dummy, you may not have the time to shorten declarer's trump suit. You may well find it is far more advantageous to grab your winners while you can. For example, after your opening lead you see in addition to three trumps the dummy holds KQJ43 of a side suit, beware. You can't let too much grass grow under your feet before taking your winners. There is also one time when it becomes necessary to force the dummy instead of declarer. When you find dummy has a long suit with no entries, seriously consider upsetting declarer's timing by making him use one of dummy's trumps early in the play to eliminate the probability he will trump later to get to his suit. Against a four-heart contract, pard leads the spade deuce to your AKJ5. Dummy comes down with 96-Q86-AK763-953. It's obvious declarer wants to eventually set-up the diamond suit. Win the AK and return a third spade forcing dummy to ruff. You know pard held four originally by his opening lead so declarer must have three. Now unless declarer holds the queen of diamonds declarer will have no entry for he must pull the adverse trumps before establishing diamonds. Had you thoughtlessly not forced dummy to ruff, declarer would simply pull trump and reach dummy later with the heart queen. The defense leading trump can be devastating to declarer. A bidding convention in common use today is "Flannery," which I will also mention next week. If the opening bid is two-diamonds it is artificial showing five hearts, four spades, and 11-15 hcps., an unbalanced hand. Should the final contract be in either major, the most favorable lead to combat declarer is a trump. The trump lead dilutes the offenses' power to ruff. I only use this bidding example as an easy way for the defense to diagnose that forcing declarer to trump will be their best avenue to obtain their goal against unbalanced hands. With the specific holding of an ace and two small trump (A53), and it is determined that a trump lead is best, do not lead the ace but lead small. This enables you to keep control of the suit and when you once again win a trick you will be able to lead out the rest of your trumps exhausting declarer of an extra one. Louis Watson in his book, "The Play of the Hand at Bridge," summarizes his last chapter about planning both play and defense strategy with one short sentence. Most appropriately he writes, "look before you leap."