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Anyone who has spent enough time at the bridge table can tell you that a defender's life is not an easy one. The slightest slip, no matter how inconsequential it may seem at the moment, can spell the difference between success and failure.
Take this case where North-South bid aggressively to reach four hearts, and West led the queen of clubs. Declarer won with dummy's king, led a heart to the queen and, after it held, cashed the ace.
South then played the king of diamonds and a diamond to the ace, ruffed a diamond, cashed the ace of clubs and ruffed a club. Next came another diamond ruff, on which East discarded a spade, carefully retaining his remaining club. East did this so that if declarer next put him on lead with the king of hearts, he could exit with a club and not be forced to yield a trick to dummy's king of spades.
All would have been well had West been paying closer attention to his knitting. When declarer did in fact lead his last heart after ruffing dummy's last diamond, West had to decide what to discard. He knew from the play thus far that declarer had started with five hearts, three clubs and two diamonds, and so had three spades left. West therefore elected to keep his three spades, discarding his last club, the eight.
Disaster! When East won the heart lead with the king and returned the six of clubs, South simply discarded a spade. East then had to yield the last trick to dummy's king of spades, handing South the contract.
Of course, if West had retained his "worthless" eight of clubs, he would have won East's club return and led a spade through dummy's king to defeat the contract. What had seemed a harmless discard cost him 720 points and a great deal of grief in the post-mortem.
As we said, a defender's life is not an easy one.
Tomorrow: Hot potato.