It is a well-known fact that defending is the most difficult part of the game. When you only know about half of your side's assets it is harder to plan the best cards to play even with half of the opponents' cards visible in dummy. However I don't think that this excuses the defence I encountered on the following hand:

The auction goes (game all at teams):

West	North	East	South
		Pass	2
Pass	3	Pass	3
Pass	4	AP

West led the A and dummy came down. This is what you see:

	K 9 8 7 A K Q 8 7 5 Q 10 5
	J 9 8 7 5 3 A K 2 10 9 4 2

Now the contract has a few minor flaws:

Though I guess "it's teams" can be used to excuse both my bids and partner's. Anyway, LHO led the A and RHO played the 6. First good piece of news — I get a heart switch to the J and A. Still not seeing how I can make this contract I play off three rounds of diamonds pitching my last two clubs. Second bit of good news — the diamonds are 3-3 and nobody ruffs. That still leaves me with a slow heart loser, and two or more trump losers, so I lead a fourth diamond to see what turns up. RHO discards so I happily pitch my small heart as LHO ruffs in with the 10! I ruff the club exit and now comes the third bit of good news — as LHO started with Q10 doubleton of trumps his Q is now bare and gets squashed by the stiff king in dummy, setting up my remaining trumps in hand. Contract made!

Now it is time to look at the full deal:

	K 9 8 7 A K Q 8 7 5 Q 10 5
Q 10 Q 10 5 9 6 4 A K 8 7 3		A 6 4 2 J 6 4 3 J 3 2 J 6
	J 9 8 7 5 3 A K 2 10 9 4 2

So where do we start to discuss what went wrong with the defence? I shall be neutral from my point of view as the declarer and say that East deserves 90% of the blame and West 10%. It seems slightly strange for East to play the 6 from J6 on the A as they seemed to be playing standard attitude and count signals. Particularly when this suggests to his partner that he has four clubs to the jack, leaving declarer with a singleton and therefore the defence need to get their heart tricks before declarer's losers in that suit go on the diamonds which are breaking. Next we come to East's decision to not ruff the fourth diamond. Admittedly South's 2 opening in the second seat at game all is slightly unusual (it does have six spades though!) since it has two outside defensive tricks and a poor suit; however with the diamonds breaking for declarer who has already discarded two losers, it seems sensible for East to ruff in low at the first opportunity to prevent the discard of a further loser (if partner has a natural trump trick he's going to make it anyway).

However, perhaps sensing the chance of immortality and an appearance on poorbridge.com, East found the interesting heart discard and gave me the only chance to make this no-play contract. There were no genuine deceptive plays available, all I could do was cash winners and hope the defence went wrong (not to mention hoping the diamonds broke 3-3 and the Q10 of trumps were doubleton) — and how they managed that!