A Cool Hand


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

A fairly routine hand, one would think, with the defense able to take only one diamond. Spades are solid, clubs are breaking evenly. There is a 4-1 break in hearts, but declarer can afford to lose two trump tricks if he is not otherwise wasteful. But some declarers went down -- two. Here is how they did it:
Opening lead a diamond, spade to the jack, club queen. So far, so good. And now the jack of hearts. ? ? ? Why wouldn't one simply ruff a diamond, throw another on a club honor, and now draw trump, starting with the queen, your side suits all being taken care of. So you lose two trump tricks. What of it. And what could have been simpler? Anyway:
After the jack of hearts came the king! That means that a defender could win with that and force a diamond ruff with the queen! Meaning the defense didn't even need a 4-1 heart break here to get two trump tricks. Now came a spade to the queen, two club honors cashed, sluffing diamonds. So he had a bit of luck there. Now the queen of hearts was taken by the ace and a diamond lead meant declarer now had the same number of trump as East, and that's all right because he has top spades and can just lead 'em until East ruffs with the 10 and claim.
But he led the 8 of hearts to the 10, and so lost the last two tricks to diamond leads as the A and K of spades were impotently played under them. Have to look up her self-ranking. (It turned out to be advanced.) Another:
Spade to the jack, queen of clubs, good. Now for the diamonds, no? No. A spade to the queen! You don't want to eat up a perfectly good entry you may want later in a side suit where the defense might have ruffing potential. Spades figure to split 4-2 (which they do) and you're missing the A of trump. As it happens, the short spades lie with the A, so the defense has no ruffing potential, but it still represents a delay in setting about establishing your winners. You must lose a diamond here and await developments. You only have to ruff one, the other going on a club honor. You don't need the third club honor. Now came the 3 of hearts to the jack. So shifting the lead to dummy didn't mean a thing. The lead was transferred right back to the closed hand! Just a wasted use of an entry. Now a heart to the queen and ace, and East astutely led the 10 of hearts, giving up that (probable) heart trick to kill dummy!
Entries, entries, entries! Why eat up the entry offered by the queen of spades? If there, why not cash a couple of clubs lest you never see dummy again? It's hard to understand. Anyway, to make a long story short, this declarer lost still another unnecessary trick by not drawing East's last two trump before running spades, losing in all, three diamonds and two hearts. When dummy has a singleton diamond? Inexcusable.
We note, looking back at the hand years later, that declarer could finesse the 8 of hearts, second round, after noting the fall of the nine on the first round, holding East to one trump winner. Also, if the defense doesn't cash out a diamond winner, yes, you can discard all diamonds on the clubs (after one round of trump), by virtue of the 3-3 split. The fourth round (where you sluff the last diamond) can be ruffed, but that's a natural trump trick (unless you were going to finesse the 8) and you're getting rid of your last diamond on it.
But these are just doodads, yes little things you could have done, reviewing the hand, but I'd point out first that they both require that Q of spades solid entry which you don't want to chew up until needed. But more important, they can't hold a candle to the basic principle of establishing winners, taking care of avoidable losers, getting out trump, & cashing winners you have retained access to. Here on a diamond lead, and shift to a spade, the hand becomes so simple: win in the closed hand (this doesn't block the suit). Cash the Q of clubs, ruff a diamond (that's gotta be safe), cash the A of clubs, sluffing your last diamond (you don't need the second club honor) and now play the Q of hearts to get out the trump. Oh, there's a 4-1 split? Well, so there is -- for everyone playing the hand. Second guessing that 4-1 split, yes, would have worked here but it's not in the same ballpark as taking care of every last diamond in the closed hand, meaning your side-suits are all now safe, and drawing trump! Which can be done so easily. No?