The easy life

The following type of misdefence has occurred countless times - which defender was most at fault?

West led ♠ Q and declarer - for fear of never making it - correctly won ♠ K. With eight top tricks and several chances for nine, declarer cashed ♥ AKQ. West discarded ♦ 3 on the second ♥ and ♥ 4 on the third. Declarer then cashed dummy’s ♦ AK and followed with ♣ AK. Neither queen appeared so his chances seem to have run out. In desperation he exited with ♠ 8.
West, delighted, won ♠ 9 and started cashing his top ♠s. He led ♠ A and East discarded ♥ 10; he followed with ♠ J and East discarded ♥ J. His last two cards were ♠ 10 and ♠ 8 and East’s last two cards were ♦ Q and ♣ Q. At this point he led ♠ 10 and East had to make another discard. After much soul-searching East discarded ♦ Q, and declarer threw ♣ J. West led his ♦ 8 but it was declarer who, out-of-the-blue, made the last trick (and his contract) with ♦ J.
Superficially East made the blunder - throwing the wrong queen away at the penultimate trick. But West made a far more culpable error. He knew East’s hand was all winners as soon as declarer did not cash a ninth trick; he should not have cashed his ♠ 10 at the penultimate trick giving his partner a chance to go wrong - rather leading ♦ 8 for East to win the last two tricks with ♦ Q and ♣ Q.

ANDREW’S TIP: Make partner’s life easy in defence.