Account for Every Card


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

The first declarer I looked at carried out a simple dummy reversal, no doubt in part induced by the opening lead, for 98.78% matchpoints. The second didn't fare so well. Down one for 12.20%. No, the difference didn't lie in the opening lead, exactly. Anyway, here's what the first declarer did: ruff the heart lead, club to the Q, ruff another heart, club to the 10, diamond hook into the K, now K of spades to the A, back with a diamond to the 10 and ruff the last heart. The hand now looked like this:
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------
J 6 5
A 6
Q 8 5 10 4
Q 10 A K
------ ------
------ 9
J 7 6
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A 8
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Where it is evident that declarer now need only ruff a spade, draw the last round of trump, and diamonds will run.
You might note that since one spade can be thrown on the long diamond, the hands are roughly equal after that opening lead ruff. You've got four trump in each hand, you have two hearts to ruff if you play from dummy, or two spades to ruff if you play from the closed hand. This declarer found a path that worked.
The other declarer didn't plan the hand well, or count well. Lemme ask, how many club winners do you have on that 5-4 split if you draw three rounds while there are trump in each of declarer's hands? The answer has to be 6. You get three rounds of trump, one ruff in the short hand (North), two in the long. When the diamond hook is off, how many diamond winners do you have? Of course the answer is 4. How many spade winners? Of course the answer is one, and how many hearts? Of course you have none. Don't count ruffing a heart as a heart winner. That trick's already been counted in club winners. That adds up to eleven. Not enough. So you don't make your contract drawing three rounds of trump. Period.
This is an analysis that might work for some people in the moderate haste of play, and if that's your cup of tea, be my guest. You could do worse. Further, if you have a bit of an analytic bent, as dismissing all errors and possible errors as past history, an analysis like this would serve you well in a post-mortem (i.e., after the session is finished, not a quickie analysis). Myself, I think it would be easier to account for every card in one hand or the other. Here's what happened to the second declarer:
Spade K to the A, club to the A, diamond hook to the K, heart lead ruffed, club to the Q and cash the 10! Now a simple count would let you know that you now cannot make the hand. You've got six club winners, etc., as stated above. Had the K of diamonds been picked up, that'd 5 diamond winners, and you could afford 3 trump leads, but declarer already knew the finesse was off. And here's what declarer faced after the ruff of the heart at trick four:

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

Now declarer must account for every card in each hand. Since you cannot afford the loss of another trick, here "account for" means that every card played by declarer must either be a winner, or be played on a winner in the other hand. I would vote for ruffing the spades since you have the lead in the closed hand. Remember, you only have to ruff two spades, since one spade will go on the long diamond. Let's see if it will work: ruff a spade with the 6, ruff a heart with the 7, ruff a spade with the 10 and cash the Q of trump. The hand would then look like this before cashing the Q:

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

And declarer would still be alive. He should cash the Q of clubs, come to the closed hand with the A of diamonds, cash the K of clubs, sluffing a heart from dummy, and now diamonds will run, sluffing a spade from the closed hand. Unfortunately, declarer didn't see that line.
At the 9-card end position above (the second last layout), declarer cashed two rounds of trump, picking up East's remaining trump, to be sure, but now, he can ruff only one heart in the closed hand, one spade in dummy and even with the ability to sluff a spade on the long diamond, he was left with a stray heart in dummy, a stray spade in the closed hand, West covering the latter, East the former, and so it was down one.

It's a common mistake of so-so players to count shortages in one suit from the closed hand, shortages in another suit from dummy, draw trump and wonder why they've got an unexpected loser late in the hand. This was demonstrated on this hand, which thereby became one of my favorites, since it demonstrated this propensity so unequivocally.
On the hand above, declarer looked at spades, saw no losers, at hearts, saw no losers, at diamonds, saw a finessing potential, where he can afford to lose one trick, and at clubs, again seeing no losers. So except for a short detour to take the diamond hook, which has to be taken sooner or later, declarer simply got out the trump and . . . Well, you know the rest. Okay, had clubs split 2-2, this declarer would have fallen into his contract almost willy-nilly. So sometimes that bad habit won't bite you. But trump weren't 2-2 and he did have a heart loser, the last trick being the 9 of hearts to the A, as the closed hand played the 7 of spades. Expensive.
Count winners, count losers, but if you count the latter, you must account for the cards in one hand or the other. You'll note that declarers had to take a chance on the second round of diamonds being ruffed. Of course. But what's the alternative? Obviously going down.
[Actually, there's a bit of a paradox here. If declarer counted his heart losers in the closed hand and his spade losers in the open hand, a common enough mistake, then one wonders why he'd take the diamond hook, which ran a bit of a risk, before trump were out. However, he did take that finesse at trick 3, which was in essence a discovery play, whether he viewed it in that light or not. Now when it loses and he has a max of five side-suit winners (one spade and 4 diamonds), simple subtraction should tell him he needs seven trump winners. Which he didn't make even a half-hearted attempt for. He led trump at trick 2, evidently for an entry to take the diamond hook, and then upon regaining the lead, led two more rounds, assuring himself of no more than 6 club winners. Of course you're down one if you play for down one.]