Question:  How do you recognize the “never-ever” or “frozen” suit as defender?  Is Qxx on the board a great opportunity for the defender to lead through the strength or is it a trap?

Answer:  A “never-ever” suit is one which the declarer never-ever wants to play.  If declarer can throw the defenders in at the end of the hand while still have trumps in both hands and being void in the other two side suits.  If this happens, then the defenders must give a trick to the declarer by leading the never-ever suit.

♣Qxx              ♦KJx                ♥ Kxx

♣Jxx                ♦A10x             ♥ Jxx

The question is how does the defender recognize this type of suit.  It’s generally not a good idea to lead through these types of holding in the dummy.  You are very likely breaking a never-ever suit unless partner signals for you to switch to the suit.  Additionally, if declarer strips the hand of the other two side suits and throws you in at the end of the hand – then count on it being a never-ever suit because otherwise, the declarer would have played on that suit earlier in the hand.  This is called end-playing the defender.

The best defense to an end-play is to lead one of the other side suits – in other words, give declarer a ruff and a sluff.  Two things can happen for you:

• 1) it was a pseudo end-play and declarer really isn’t void in both hands or
• 2) declarer accidentally end-played you (happens more than you think) and when give a sluff and a ruff, declarer pitches from the wrong hand and ends up with the same number of losers in the never-ever suit as before the sluff and ruff!

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