Here's an interesting defensive problem from that Individual IMP Pairs tourney on Monday.

All Red, 4th

AJ97 / AT9842 / 872 / -

 

1 Spade - LHO, 3 Spades - RHO, 4 Diamonds - LHO, 4 Spades - RHO, SOLD!

 

You summon your psychic energy to impel your partner to lead a Club. 

 

Presto!  The Jack of Clubs hits the table (declarer eventually plays a low club from dummy.)

 

Dummy tracks:

 

8643 / K6 / KJT / Q874

 

AJ97 / AT9842 / 872 / -

Hmmm, maybe you didn't want a Club lead after all.  Do you ruff this and if so, what do you return?  If not, what do you pitch?

I fell from grace here and pitched the Ten of Hearts (standard signals in this case.)  As a rule, you don't like ruffing air, particularly with a beefy trump holding like AJ97, but in this case you know that Declarer is sitting over your AJ97 with KQTxx and that if you don't score your baby trump now, you might never score it.

A better pitch would have been a small Diamond.  Again, as a rule, you don't want to make a pitch in a key suit where there might be a two-way guess for the Queen or a hoped-for 3-3 break.  But if he's going to pick up my Spade suit, he needs 3 entries to do it, and those entries must come in Diamonds, if they're coming at all.  Pitching a Diamond protects my Spade holding.

Sure enough, Declarer won, and led 3 times to the board in Diamonds for 3 Spades through me (partner pitched the 2-3-5 of Clubs.)   Here I am just before the third Spade:

86 / K6 / - / Q87 Dummy (RHO)

AJ / A9842 / - / -

Rather than be endplayed, I won the Ace and continued with the Jack.

Oops. 

There goes another trick.

Declarer had

86 / K6 / - / Q87

K5 / 3 / A / K6

Partner's Club pitches were nuts, but I should still get it right and cash out for -650 at that point.  I knew that Declarer always had 10 tricks, though, and sometimes nutty plays happen when you're trying to beat a contract at IMPs. 

Partner wasn't quite so philosophical.

'please explain the first trick partner?'

'ANSWER ME'

All I could come up with was:

'I charge for lessons, sorry'

-680 was lose 6.20, -620 was lose 4.40

8643 / K6 / KJT / Q874

KQT52 / 3 / AQ95 / AK6