How to go Down!

	K J 10 6
	Q 10
	A J 9
	Q J 6 5
8 7 3 2		------
8 4 3		A K J 6 5 2
10 7		6 4 2
K 10 7 3		A 9 8 4
	A Q 9 5 4
	9 7	Contract: 4 spades
	K Q 8 5 3
	2	Opening lead: 8 of hearts

Something's out of whack here. Declarer is down one! Declarer has two suits where he can cash out 5 tricks in each for 10 tricks. Nor can the defense cash out more than three tricks. Let 'em cash two diamond tricks and a club. Declarer must then get the lead and can cash out -- starting with trump -- ten tricks, no?

Well, no, it would seem. Lemme see what declarer did. The defense cashed two heart tricks and shifted to a diamond. Okay. Declarer has the top 4 diamonds and the suit's splitting evenly anyway. And he's got the top six spades. So what went wrong?

Declarer won the diamond shift, cashed three rounds of trump -- three, that is -- cashed the A of diamonds, played another diamond, which was ruffed, of course, West then shifting to a club and hitting his partner with the A. So that's how a holding and contract that anyone who can count to 10 should have brought home turned out a little too much for this declarer.

Since declarer can't sluff more than two clubs from dummy anyway on the diamond differential, which is to say that since declarer always has a club to lose, why not cash out all spades whether you've lost count or not?

Run your 5-card spades suit, finish running the 5-card diamond holding, but no. Not here.

This declarer lost 61 matchpoints! which is awfully expensive for failure to count up to 10 upon gaining the lead, and cashing out 10 winners, starting with trump, of course. With the top 6 cards in trump, declarer can live with the worst possible split, which indeed, he got. But while I'm on lost matchpoints, I might mention a defense that kicked away 37.

Another declarer wound up plus 5! Lemme see how that was done. Opening lead was a heart, followed by a heart, followed by another heart! Oh me. A sluff & ruff. Declarer sluffed his club loser and thus, had no losers there. So, drawing trump, declarer claimed (the record stops here).

East won the first trick on his partner's heart lead, and cashed another heart. Now at this point, East should know that there is only one more heart out. He started with six of them and has seen six played by the other three hands, no? If the closed hand holds the last heart, a continuation would probably be neither advantageous nor disadvantageous to the defense. There would be nothing for the defense to gain by another heart lead. But if West holds the last heart, there would be much to lose, for declarer might get rid of a loser on a sluff&ruff if East continues the suit. So why not try the Ace of clubs first to see if there's any potential there. The Ace wins and West would give his partner the best come-on he could with the 10 of clubs. But we can see that 3 tricks are all the defense can pick up.

A very foolish gift, which cost the defense 37 matchpoints.

So from those two figures (the first declarer with less than a full matchpoint, losing 61 mp's, the second table's defenders with 1.5 mp's coughing up 37 mp's suggest that the expected plus 5, making must have rewarded the declaring side with roughly 62 matchpoints. Expensive.