An Eight-Card Suit over an Eleven?

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

This one illustrates the advantage of both the major over the minor for trump and of the balanced suit over the unbalanced -- with an asterisk. The asterisk is that if you're bidding over 4 spades, as many were, and you get a spade lead, it won't matter which suit you're in. You're going down one. You can't fight that 4-1 heart split, can't sluff a spade in dummy until the sixth round of diamonds, which is to say East would have ruffed in long before, allowing the defense a spade, club and a heart trick. However, please note that it takes two conditions for it not to matter, which is to say the balanced 4-4 heart suit as trump is going to do you far better than the (slightly) unbalanced 6-5 diamond suit sometimes, while diamonds as trump won't allow more than 10 tricks whatever the opening lead. Which is tantamount to saying you wanna be in hearts here for the advantage you may accrue.

There is little point in going through the play. You can see that without a spade lead, declarer draws a third round of trump after getting the bad news of the heart break and now runs diamonds. (Well, we'll presume declarer drops the stiff K.) East can ruff in any time after the first round of diamonds, but it won't matter. He knocks out the A of spades, but declarer would continue running diamonds, sluffing a spade on the 6th round, ruffing a spade with dummy's last trump.

You might also note that on 3-2 hearts, it won't matter if you get a spade lead. You've got slam, and I guess we've all been in worse. Here, of course, the heart split dooms any slam attempt, but you might pick up 11 tricks, which you couldn't do in a diamond contract (6 diamonds, a spade and 3 hearts on that bad split). The opponents evidently could make 4 spades, so down one in five would be a worthy sac in any vulnerability. But 5 hearts offers the added chance of making. Okay, two chances, slim & none, given that a spade lead looks to be a natural. Still, slim sometimes comes through.