Another Falling in Love with the Solid Suit

	J 9 5
	8 7 4 3
	A K Q 7 6
	A
10 7 3		K 6 2
10 2		Q J 9
10 9 8		J 5
Q J 5 4 3		K 9 7 6 2
	A Q 8 4
	A K 6 5
	4 3 2	Vul: N-S
	10 8	Opening lead: Q of clubs

East	South	West	North
Pass	1	Pass	2 !
Pass	2 NT	Pass	3
Dbl	3	4	6
All	pass		! Alerted

Here is another example of bidders falling in love with a fairly solid, unbalanced suit at the expense of a viable contract in a balanced suit. Here the offense is doubled, for these bidders were not only choosing the unbalanced suit over the balanced, but a minor over a major. And it didn't work except, yes, for two declarers who got a defensive error and thus made 6 diamonds. But I don't think you want to rely on defensive boo-boos over your own intelligence, do you?

Four people were in 6 hearts, all making. Four were in six diamonds, two making on a gift from the defense, as noted, two going down for a very bad board. Though all 6 heart declarers made, I did note that five people in four hearts didn't get that second overtrick, and I'll take them up in a minute.

In any event, it should be clear from a perusal of the hand that six hearts is a cakewalk -- well, you do need even breaks in hearts and diamonds and an onsides K of spades. Still, there's only one way to play the hand, and a heart declarer should have no trouble drawing two rounds of trump, then running diamonds, sluffing two spades, taking the spade hook. Oh yes, along the way East will ruff in for the defense's lone trick, but you have a re-entry by way of clubs, either the A or a club ruff. Or one could take the spade hook before running diamonds. It should all come out to the same thing.

But in a diamond contract, you don't get any sluffs on a side suit. You have the same heart loser, whether it's trump or not, and should have a spade loser for down one. How come there wasn't a spade loser for two diamond declarers? I confess I surmised that a couple of anal-retentive Easts had been unable to part with their K of spades when declarer led the jack, in which surmise I was wrong, though substantially right, for this reason:

Each East led spades before declarer got around to the suit. One indeed led the King! Were these East's thrown in, unable to lead any other suit? Hardly. They each got a club lead from partner (one the deuce, the other the queen), and sometimes you've just got to let your partner guard the suit his lead more or less promises something in. "Cover an honor with an honor" is just about always applied to an honor led by declarer. But it's not a great stretch to point out to this defender that you also want to wait until the suit is led, so that you can cover. Keep the same number in a suit as dummy shows, I have often exhorted my readers. Here East should keep the same number of spades as dummy shows -- and so should West, or the cover doesn't do the defense any good. Declarer would then have no way of escaping a spade loser (i.e., in a diamond contract).

What about those who couldn't master a 12th trick in hearts, albeit not in slam? Well, lemme see: Opening lead a club, one round of trump, one of diamonds, 2nd round of trump, 2nd round of diamonds, 3rd of diamonds, fourth of diamonds, sluffing a club, fifth round, sluffing spade. Fourth round sluffing a club! Oh, please, please, please. You can ruff that club, for a fifth heart winner. The 10 of clubs can't be a winner in its own right, but it's worth a trick. There's no other way to pick up a 12th trick! Declarer must see that the 10 of clubs is a valuable card. Make it a fourth diamond or 5th spade in that hand and you'll find no way to five heart winners, no way to avoid a spade loser.

Second declarer: Club to the A, one round of trump and ruff the 10 of clubs! Hm-mm. I'm not sure why declarer is in such a hurry for a trick you've always got access to and that might be a valuable entry, and before going further, I'm suspicious that that had something to do with missing a 12th trick. Oh! Well, I was wrong. It didn't augur well. It didn't suggest a declarer I would have had confidence in, but it turned out that his undoing was failure to take a simple spade hook. His total of 11 tricks might have been indirectly related to ruffing that club so quickly, for he didn't get around to the spades until trick 12, where leading the J and finding it not covered, he went up with the ace. Had he still a club to ruff, a losing finesse would have meant only one overtrick, a finsesse everyone's losing if it's off for a fine board vis-à-vis those who bid slam. But this declarer was looking at a sure overtrick on declining the finesse vs. 10 or 12 tricks if he took it. And being in 4 spades, he went for the sure overtrick.

The next declarer did even worse: This one also got a club lead and went for a club ruff at trick 3. Now a second round of trump, 3 rounds of diamonds, getting ruffed on the third, ruff a club from East, sluffing a spade from the closed hand, ruff a diamond from dummy! ! ! Well, if you're going to ruff the fourth round of diamonds, no, you're not going to pitch enough spades to avoid a spade loser (this one didn't even bother with the finesse).

Please note the sluff-and-ruff here. The previous declarer had led a third round of trump for no good reason when only the high trump was out. This meant that one hand was out of trump (since a club had been ruffed) and the defense could lead a club with impunity (ruffed). Declarer then had no trump in either hand and was spooked out of a simple finesse evidently because of that. This declarer more wisely took only two rounds of trump before running diamonds. Now with two trump in the closed hand and one in dummy, after sluffing a spade on that sluff&ruff club lead, ruffing in dummy, had she then run diamonds to sluff two more spades, she would have had 12 tricks without the spade hook! Since the hook is on, that wouldn't have given her more tricks than a simple finesse, so the sluff&ruff didn't cost the defense a trick. But on another day, it could, i.e., on an offsides K.

Well, I won't go into the others who missed a trick. But I hope it is clear that the balanced hearts as trump allow you to sluff two spades on the unbalanced diamonds and thus avoid a spade loser. But if diamonds are trump, the balanced hearts offer no sluff in an opposite hand and there is no way to avoid a spade loser against good defense. Had the K of spades been off-sides, the balanced suit as trump wouldn't bring in an extra trick, since you've then got a spade loser in either suit as trump, but not a second spade loser in either. But certainly it would matter that one contract is in a major suit for 30 points a trick, the other in a minor for 20, no?

Now a reasonable question might go like this: OK, a balanced major vs. an unbalanced minor offers no conflict. But suppose you had an unbalanced major pitted against a balanced minor? Now what do you do when you've got conflicting indicators: the balanced over the unbalanced or the major over the minor? I personally think the major suit will do you well more often than not. As just mentioned above, put the K of spades offsides, and the balanced suit as trump doesn't offer more tricks. Everybody would be down in slam, but would you rather be making 11 tricks in a heart game or a diamond? Those in the balanced minor might make a slam that those in the unbalanced major couldn't make. So let's just say that in that case, either choice has some logic behind it. But you're barking up the wrong tree if you if you're looking for a formula for getting every decision right. You'd do well it get a greater percentage of your bids right than the other guys do.

Let's for the nonce, exchange the red suits all around the table. Now you can make six diamonds but not six hearts! Okay. But wait a minute: Let's make the K of spades offsides! Now you can't sluff enough spades on the 5-3 suit to avoid a spade loser. So those in a heart game come out ahead. And these are matters you can't know during the bidding. So you'd do well to think of likelihood and basic, elementary bidding principles than to try to fine tune every hand to the exact right point.

But there's no logic behind falling in love with a solid, unbalanced minor for trump, when you have a balanced major with adequate length (traditionally 8 cards) to be named trump. Let me make just one change on the hand for discussion purposes: the deuce of hearts for the K. Now nobody's making slam, of course, and with a king less, we'll presume few would be there. Now which is better: an eight-card diamond suit (headed by the A K Q) for trump, or the 4-4 hearts suit, headed by the A and no spot higher than the 8?

Oh, come on. Do you really have to think it over? The hearts would serve you better. You've got to get away from thinking that solid suit must be trump. When I have Ace-empty like that, I would duck a round of trump and take the second with the A. The reason for that, of course, is to inhibit a third round of trump. At that point, after a second round of trump, I would run my unbalanced diamonds. Keep everything else the same above. Everybody's losing two heart tricks. But I think that's all I'm gonna lose, while those who fall in love with the diamonds will lose the same two hearts and a spade. And even if you could make the same number of tricks in each contract, the hearts would pay you better as trump. Just don't be in slam.