The Balanced Will do It

Pride Goeth Before a Fall


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K Q J 7 5
A 9 5 2
K 6 4 2
J 10 4 2 K Q 8 6 5 3
9 6 4 10 8 2
J 8 4 Q 6
Q J 7 8 3
A 9 7
A 3
K 10 7 3Vul: None
A 10 9 5 Opening lead: 3 of hearts

WestNorthEastSouth
1 2 3 NT
All pass
I felt good about this hand for a few days. With ten top tricks, I ducked the first two spade leads, sluffing two clubs and then a diamond on the third round. Now West was squeezed on the 5th heart and had to give up third round control of one minor or the other, while I had 3 clubs and 2 diamonds in the closed hand vs. 3 diamonds and two clubs in dummy. My opponent elected to sluff a diamond, and I had 11 tricks. I thought we'd get about a 70% on it.
A few days later, I thought I'd take a gander to see how many had missed a squeeze because they didn't duck two rounds of spades, for the squeeze won't work unless you do. The first thing I noted was that we got only a 52%. When I scrolled up to the top, I noted that a sprinkling of incautious bidders had made an expensive sac in spades. Well, I had no control over whether our opponents went wild (though actually, even two spades was "one too many" if we're not making slam).
Then I noted a 6 no bid making. Whoa. You can't make 6 no on good defense. Then it was a 6 heart hand, and the same thing holds there. You can't make 6 without a defensive error, and indeed, 6 hearts plays the same as 6 no. Then it was 6 clubs and a sprinkling in 6 diamonds, and I wondered where these people were getting their slam bids from. So I printed out one of each, along with another declarer who'd made 12 tricks without bidding slam and one who only made an obvious 10 tricks.
It was while I was pulling the club slam off the printer, and even before I looked at it that I had a sudden insight: Why, of course you can make 6 clubs or 6 diamonds on your own steam without a defensive error. The hand illustrates the value of the balanced suit over the unbalanced. All declarer has to do is to ruff one spade in dummy, then take two rounds of trump and run hearts, sluffing one spade and two of a minor suit on the differential. The defense gets only one trump trick.
You might put it in terms of winners: You always have 5 hearts, a spade and the top two tricks in each minor for 10. In no trump or hearts, you've got a squeeze for 11, as noted, provided that you duck two tricks. In either minor, you have the fourth round of the minor you've chosen as trump, for 11, and one ruff for twelve -- in other words, four club winners, five hearts, two diamonds and a spade. On the 4-4 clubs, we hafta lose one to West, but we get a ruff to compensate. So a ruff and then three club leads will bring us to four.
Whether we would have reached slam without the intervening bid can never be known. I was playing with someone for the first time and made the most unambiguous game bid I thought feasible. I was ready for anyone who said we'd missed slam in hearts, but no one made such a claim, and I confess that the minor suit slams didn't even occur to me, since no one pointed out that slam potential. Still, the hand does offer a lesson on the value of a balanced suit over an unbalanced that is sometimes there.
How did a declarer make 6 no? Well, that was kinda easy, since West led the queen of clubs, an incautious lead, though her partner had bid a spade herself. And 6 hearts? Well, it was the counterpart to a club lead. Here it was a diamond lead, and like the 6 no contract, declarer could develop 4 tricks in the suit led to go with 5 hearts, a spade and two winners in the other minor. This West player also got a spade bid by his partner. And that was a very expensive lead in each case.
How about making 12 tricks in 3 no? Ah, here West did lead a spade, though ironically, sitting opposite a passing partner! But this astuteness was not followed up with the same level of play. Indeed, on her first chance to discard, out went the 4 of diamonds, and declarer was able to run the suit for 12 tricks. And lastly, there was the type of hand I was looking for: A spade lead taken by declarer who could not effect a squeeze and had to settle for 10 tricks.
Here there was a spade bid, so on the run of the hearts, West could discard 2 spades with impunity and now must get the lead on the third round of one minor or the other, and declarer had better take his ten tricks first or he might not get 'em.