Counting up to Twelve -- Again

	A 2
	10 8 6 4
	A K Q 10 9
	6 3
Q 10 7		J 6 5 4
K 9 3		Q J 5 2
J 7 3		8 6 5 4
10 9 4 2		5
	K 9 8 3
	A 7
	2	Contract: 6 clubs
	A K Q J 8 7	Opening lead: 3 of diamonds

This was one of the most elementary cases of where simple counting would surely have steered declarer right. How did he go down? I wondered. Did he leave a trump hanging out there some place? No, that wasn't it. Well, given that his only diamond entry to dummy is wiped out on the opening lead, did he cut himself off from dummy when all trump are out by getting a quick spade ruff? Actually, had he done that, he still could have made his contract, for he'd only have two losers at that point and diamonds would last long enough to take care of them. But that wasn't what he did.

No. After winning the diamond opening lead, declarer ran four rounds of trump, went to the A of spades, cashed the Q of diamonds -- and came to the A of hearts. Oh, oh. In trying to find out what happened to the K of diamonds, I found that declarer had sluffed it on the J of clubs! Not the 9 of diamonds or the 10, but the king. Well, that's too bizarre to have any instructional value.

In any event, the hand counts out to 12 top winners, as soon as clubs are ascertained not to be 5-0, and by luck the J of diamonds falls, making it 13 winners for just about everybody else.