The Forcing Defence: Drain Declarer's Trumps

This is the start of a big topic. The general goal is to weaken declarer's and dummy's trump holding. There are various ways to do it, and many reasons for it. 

The forcing game a very important idea to understand and be aware of at the table. Often the natural tendency for defenders is to give their partner a ruff, or get ruffs themselves. While that is often a good idea, it sometimes blinds us from seeing the forcing game. 

The forcing game is where we force declarer to ruff, which leads to declarer losing control of the hand. 

Lets look at a common situation where the forcing game applies

You are West in all the below examples.

Both doubles are takeout (doubles tend to be takeout rather than penalty if the opponents bid and raise a suit).

Due to the four card trump holding, West decides to lead the ♣K rather than his singleton, envisaging a forcing defence.

The club holds, as does a second club. West can see three top tricks, the two clubs and the Ace of trumps. Looking at dummy, west can see that his partner will not have many points, he must be taking liberties at the favourable vulnerability and four card support. West continues with another club, giving a ruff and discard to declarer. West is tunnel visioned on cracking declarer's trump control. 

There is one more important technique for the defender to finish the job. He needs to duck trumps twice, waiting to the third round to win the Ace of trumps, and then forcing declarer one more time with a club. If that happens, the defender will be the only one left with a trump and several club winners. IF declarer tries to avoid that situation by NOT drawing a third round of trumps and play winners instead, west will come in with a ruff anyway, which will be the setting trick (that is in fact the best that declarer can do, settle for one off). 

Lets summarise the key concepts that occurred in that hand
1. Defender held Axxx of trumps, a common situation to be alert for.

2. The defence started by weakening dummy's trumps, forcing dummy to ruff early. 

3. After ducking two rounds, and only winning the third round of trumps, dummy will have no trumps left (because dummy has ruffed once, and then had to follow to three rounds of trumps). 

4. At this point declarer is fully exposed to one more force, when he ruffs the club, the defender is the only one left with trumps.

If you are unfamiliar with this technique, try visualise what will happen if the defence does not duck two rounds of trumps before winning the Ace, this will let declarer make the contract because dummy will be left with a trump to take care of the second force. Declarer can ruff in dummy, then come back to hand to draw the last round of trumps.

Lets continue with example 2. 

You lead the  ♦A, all following. You try a second top diamond, but declarer ruffs it and plays the ♠K, what is your next move? 

While you do not have Axxx trump in this case, forcing declarer to ruff is still effective. Win trick three with the Ace, play another diamond, forcing declarer once more. If declarer started life with 5 trumps, and has ruffed twice, he is down to the same length as you (try to visualise that). So he will need to use all his trumps to draw yours. Now, when you later win the HA, you can freely play diamonds. In other words, declarer lost control of the hand because you forced him to ruff. 

To be continued.

Where to next

• -> Next: Ruffing in Defence: Turn Shortness into Tricks
• -> Related: Dummy Type 1: Limited Entries and How to Pressure It
• -> Back to Defence Articles Hub