Where are your Most Entries?


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

Can you make 6 hearts? Seven hearts? After drawing three rounds of trump? Without that lead? The answers will prove to be essentially, yes, yes all around, but with some qualifications. How would you handle it?
Let's take 7 hearts with the above opening lead. How many times do you have to ruff clubs? The answer is only twice, not three which would often be the case on a 5-1 suit. That's because after one ruff, you can smother the 10 of clubs on your right giving you substantially a sequence with a near-marked queen of clubs. So you can get by with 3 trump leads before pursuing a ruffing out of the opponents clubs. But you'd be kind of lucky.
The diamond hook has to be taken sooner or later. Or does it? Actually one declarer did avoid it by ruffing out the queen of spades and sluffing the jack of diamonds on the fourth spade. Roughly equal chances, but they both work.
In any event, the key to the hand (played by South) lies in establishing that club suit. Everything is cold if you can do that. Declarers playing from the North hand, as a few did, would be playing a dummy reversal, where a club lead isn't so benign. See below for how declarer playing from North can make 7.
Hence, take your ace of clubs on that K lead (played by South), ruff a club low, come back with a spade or diamond (finesse) and plunk down the jack of clubs. Hindsight? Well, I don't know. If West started with K Q 10, it won't help, but won't hurt, and you just might find the 10 falling on your right, as you would. The location of the queen is marked, not with certainty but with likelihood. When you drop the 10 (whether West covers or not), you're cold for 7. You can take three rounds of trump, ending in the closed hand, ruff out the last club and claim. Seven.
One defender unwisely discarded a club on a couple of rounds of trump, though he had 5 diamonds, a suit which can hardly go to the 5th round. When the 10 fell on the first ruff of a club in dummy declarer had a rather good clue that he could pick up the queen (with his J 9) on one more ruff.
One declarer went down in 7, and another went down in 6. Well, let's see where they went wrong. The one down in six got a heart opening lead, and certainly the hand isn't being handed to him. But six? Declarer, with all kinds of entries to the closed hand really only needs to ruff two clubs, noting that everyone followed to the 3rd round of the suit, draw trump, concede a club and claim (with a diamond finesse, to be sure). Instead, declarer took a second round of trump, then two top spades, ace of clubs, ruffed a club, 10 of spades uncovered, ruffed!
This tentativeness marks declarer for going down, for he doesn't seem to have a clear idea of where he wants to go and should not let the defense dictate any decisions. There is no reason for cashing out the top spades unless you're intending to take a ruffing finesse against the queen. Period. Just don't start it unless you're going to carry it through and for heaven's sake, don't let a non-cover influence you. Would you cover that 10? East should not cover the first of equal honors. And didn't.
By going to that valuable spade holding for two winners, which he always had coming, then cutting himself down to the same number of trump in the closed hand as West holds by ruffing the 10 of spades out, declarer certainly had dug a hole for himself. He now covered himself over (i.e, after digging a hole) by cashing the ace of diamonds and conceding a trick to the king. No finesse? Man, you deserve to go down. Your peers are going to be taking advantage of the the finessing potential! Each of two finesses would have worked, and he has declined each. He now has established the queen of diamonds, of course, but on a dummy reversal still has the jack of spades to worry about! But not for long. East played the queen of spades, declarer ruffed -- and was overruffed.
And seven hearts? This declarer played from the North hand above and got a club lead! Whoa! Now it's not so simple because declarer didn't get anything with his ace of clubs. How many times does he have to ruff? The answer can only be three. He's got all sorts of entries back and hey, he's the one in seven, so he has to play it like 7 is there -- which it is. He's going to need some luck, like 4-3 clubs, an onsides king of diamonds and not least, the hand before the K Q 9 of trump holding both J and 10! So . . .
Ruff a club (at trick 2), cash the K and Q of trump. This will take you off a guess later. Back with the a diamond or spade (you've gotta take the diamond hook sooner or later), ruff a club, back with anything and now ruff the fourth round of clubs. You're lucky, lucky, lucky. In addition to the above, you need the hand with 3 trump to have 4 clubs or he could ruff high. Well, then wouldn't it be safer not to draw trump so we can't be overruffed?
Well, here's the problem. You ruff a club, back (without drawing trump), ruff a club, back, lead a club and second hand follows. Now fourth hand can't have any more clubs. And you haven't drawn a round of trump. Do you ruff high and bank on a 2-2 split, or low and hope you can't be overruffed. You're safe drawing two rounds of trump if they are indeed 2-2 and you're safe if second hand has the 3 trump and four clubs. I personally think cashing two rounds would be ultimately safer, taking you off a serious guess. But suit yourself.
This declarer also didn't seem to have a clear line as to what he wants to do. He did ruff a club at trick two, for some reason drawing the 10, and then abandoned the suit! (Faked out by the 10?) Two rounds of trump were cashed, the top spades, a third round of trump to the queen, the jack of spades covered and ruffed (that was from the closed hand, and hence not such an egregious error as it would be if the J 10 were showing). A club was ruffed, the 10 of spades was cashed, sluffing a club -- and now declarer ran out of steam.
He declined the diamond hook for some unknown reason. He's in seven and he doesn't want to take a natural finesse? But of course it wouldn't have helped him. Had he taken the hook and cashed the ace, he would have had a club loser from dummy (South) for the final trick. As it was, he played the jack of diamonds (after the ace), and won the last trick with the diamond queen. You just can't make it on both the diamond and spade finesses, even though both are on, because you just don't have the entries you need. With a diamond hook on, you've still got to ruff the queen out, and since the spade finesse is a ruffing finesse, if the third round isn't covered, you've still got to ruff the fourth round, which would lead to an overruff.
Compare that with the richness of entries to the hand with the clubs. You've got four entries in the side suits. You only need a 4-3 split in clubs, meaning three ruffs (given the ace), with a bit of luck about the fourth round, as outlined above. This declarer was looking at the clubs in dummy and apparently couldn't quite bring himself to treat the hand as a dummy reversal. Down one.
Remember the aphorism given a few weeks back: you play as if your bidding has been right on the money. You play for the cards to be right. You don't decline a finesse for a king on a five-card holding. It's true that the finesse here would have been too late, but the spectacle of someone in 7 hearts not even taking a natural finesse is disconcerting.