Driving one up the Wall


A J 4 2
K Q 6 5 3
2
7 6 3
10 6 5 9 8 7 3
J 4 2 10 7
J 10 7 6 4 Q 9 5 3
K 10 J 8 4
K Q
A 9 8
A K 8 Contract: 6 no trump
A Q 9 5 2 J of diamonds

This is the type of hand where noting that a declarer has gone down can drive a guy up the wall. The winners are there for the counting. Only the hearts are in doubt for 12 winners, and so you'll want to attack them early to change plans if you get a bad break. But there is one task to take care of before you test hearts, and that is to unblock the spade suit, for your only entries to dummy lie in the heart suit. Then on to hearts. You'll find that they split benignly, which is to say that you should have no trouble picking up 5 hearts, four spades, two diamonds and a club. Indeed, unless you note five or more spades in West's hand, you'll want to take the club hook to try for an overtrick. We see the finesse is off, but you're not hurt for the trying. So how did several declarers wind up with fewer than 12 tricks and one wind up with 13? Read on.
Opening lead the diamond jack to the ace, and now the 8 of hearts pushed through to the 10. Pushed through to the 10! Why such a deep finesse? And on the first round at that? Don't you think you could cash the ace of hearts first? On another hand, where declarer needs only 4 heart winners, it might have been a brilliant safety play (after cashing the ace), thereby guarding against West holding J 10 4 2, except that there's a bit of a problem here, since West could cover the first spot from the closed hand and decline to cover the second. The suit blocks and the only entry requires eating up a spade winner!
It's just too fancy a play to contemplate, especially with 3-2 splits are the favored distribution on 5 cards. You've got to let the good luck roll over you without biting off too much bad luck for which there as yet no evidence. You'll be a hero one out of 50 times with such a play, while the other 49 times you kick away a good contract.
Next declarer: Diamond to the Q and A, cash K Q of spades, heart to the K and back to the A and the 3-2 split now makes 12 tricks a certainty, right? Not quite. I had to seach to see how declarer went down, and it turned out that on the fourth round of hearts, declarer sluffed the K of diamonds! I have no explanation for such a play, but of course, that's why he didn't wind up with 12 winners.
The next one was down 2! Oh!, oh! Just plain carelessness. Opening spade to the K, the Q cashed, then the A of hearts, heart to the K, three more hearts run, then a losing finesse in clubs. A losing finesse in clubs! Do you see what declarer did? It's not that he needed the second club winner, but he forgot to cash dummy's remaining high spades!
So how did one declarer wind up with 13 tricks? Diamond to the king, two hearts cashed, K Q of spades cashed, heart to the K, remaining hearts cashed, dummy's top spades cashed, club to the ace, and the king falls! I have no idea why West wanted to blank his king when he had nothing else of value in his hand. One would think a king doubleton would be a treasured holding. Nor do I see how declarer knew to go up with the ace, since he could have taken a finesse with impunity. With the third highest diamond and second highest club, West chose to blank his king? I dunno, but that's how one declarer waltzed home with 13 tricks.