When we work to improve our defense, we often focus on improving our opening leads. That’s not a bad idea—after all, if you get the opening lead horribly wrong, there may be no chance to recover. But sometimes, it’s not the opening lead that determines whether we defeat the opponents’ contract or get all the tricks we’re entitled to.

We often face some difficult decisions in the middle of the defense.

Return Partner’s Lead?

One of the biggest decisions we face is whether to return partner’s opening lead. Many players have a natural tendency to blindly return their partner’s lead. It’s an easy habit to fall into—and it does help keep partner from getting upset with us! That’s especially helpful if you play with someone who tends to “lose their mind” when you do something unexpected.

But returning partner’s lead isn’t always the right move—whether we win Trick 1 or gain the lead later. We should make it a habit to consider shifting to dummy’s weakest suit (assuming dummy is on our right). The idea is that partner may have strength behind the Declarer’s strength and by shifting to this suit we may help partner take their tricks.

If you gain the lead, then shifting to a Heart would be very helpful to partner if this is a side suit.

Tip: If you have a tendency to blindly return partner’s lead, try to pause and consider whether switching to dummy’s weakest suit might work better.

Returning Partner’s Lead

If we do decide to return their lead, we need to make sure we return it correctly. If we win trick 1 and decide to return their lead, then we want to play the correct card back to partner.

The normal thing to do is to give return count. This let’s partner know what is going on with the distribution of the suit around the table.

Consider this suit:

Against a NT contract, if partner leads the ♠2, then we win the ♠A at trick 1. At trick 2 we return the ♠4. This is low from our 3 remaining cards. When Declarer plays the ♠T partner can work out that we started with 4-cards (or 2-cards, but that is often unlikely as that would give Declarer a 5-card ♠ suit and we might know that from the auction). Partner can then win the ♠J and play the ♠K and their last good Spade.

But what if this is the layout?

Then we win the ♠A at trick 1 and return the ♠7. This let’s partner know that we did not have a 4-card suit – either ♠A7 or A76. Assuming it is the latter, partner should try to get us in using another suit so that we can lead this suit through Declarer one more time.

So first we must decide, should we turn partner’s suit or shift to another suit? And then when we do return partner’s suit, we must return it properly.

Guarding a Suit

Another important thing to consider when working with partner to defend a hand the best way possible is to “keep the right card” at the end of the hand. It is extremely frustrating to allow Declarer to win the last trick because either you or partner threw away the wrong thing.

A common situation is for partner to keep the ♦K, you to keep the ♦Q, and Declarer to produce the ♣3 as their final card – having seen both you and partner discard a higher Club in the final couple of tricks. Like this:

The mistake was that both defenders kept Diamonds; one of them needed to guard Clubs.

Why does this happen?

The key concept is threats and guards. Threat cards are those held by the opponents that could become winners—either through good fortune or our poor discards. Guards are the cards we hold that prevent those threats from becoming winners. Our job is to guard their suits!

Let’s say the opponent’s hold this suit:

♦AKQ5

The ♦AKQ are certain winners. The ♦5 is a threat.

If we hold ♦9743 then it’s important that we keep all of them to try and guard the suit. If this suit is in the dummy, then it’s easier for us to recognize the situation and hold on to the right cards (or course we are going to need partner to have the ♦J and probably the ♦T as well). But sometimes Declarer has this ♦ suit in their hand and we must work out how to keep all of our ♦ and guard this suit.

The key to good partnership defense is coordination: one of us guards one suit, the other guards another. When Declarer is running a long suit and you’re choosing your discards, ask yourself “Which suit is partner guarding?” and try to guard a different suit.

This mindset helps us avoid the frustrating scenario where both of us keep the same suit and declarer’s threat gets through.

About the Author

Robert Todd is a professional player and teacher who you’ll find all over North America (and the world). He's the founder of Adventures in Bridge and you'll find him hosting events, either virtual or in-person, almost every week of the year! Robert's also the president of the ACBL Educational Foundation where he's working to build an institution to shepherd the long term good of bridge!