Entries -- Each Way


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

A very interesting hand from the standpoint of entries. I'll give you a hint about the declarer I'm going to follow through the hand: he quickly wiped out all the entries he needed to the hand that would have allowed the contract to be made, and followed that by prematurely wiping out an entry allowing a possible chance to make the hand. It would in fact would not have panned out, but the declarer who squanders an entry that wipes out his last chance when it doesn't matter is going to be the declarer who wipes out a necessary entry when it does matter, no? Anyway, I found it so interesting, I thought I'd let the reader toy with it awhile. How would you play it?
I think it is basically a question of whether you want to establish diamonds in dummy or spades in the closed hand, no? For a brief period, I thought a crossruff might look attractive, but no, if you've got the stuff for a crossruff, you've got the stuff to set up one of the hands. In any event, to get down to brass tacks, how many entries are you going to need to the closed hand on the likeliest spade split? If the A of spades lies with East? With West? How many entries are you going to need to dummy if you go after diamonds?
Well, I guess it's time to take the wraps off the hand. Here it is. Did you guess right?
K 10
J 10 7 6
A J 8 6 3 2
A
J 8 A 9 3 2
3 5 4 2
K 9 5 4 10
Q J 9 7 3 2 K 10 8 6 4
Q 7 6 5 4
A K Q 9 8
Q 7 Opening lead: Q of clubs
5 Contract: 6 hearts

The diamonds won't set up, since you have to take a second round before ruffing out West's cards and can't take a second round until all trump are out, which means that you'll need the A of spades sitting before the K, which it isn't. (You get three diamond leads on that layout, meaning you'll need just two entries, one to ruff out West's fourth diamond and another to cash the long diamonds. You have an entry with a high trump, but not with the K of spades, of course.)
Not a bad guess, just an unfortunate one: given an onsides K, diamonds set up if they're 3-2, if trump are 2-2 or even with 4-1 diamonds and 3-1 hearts, if the A of spades is onsides! So you can hardly term it a ridiculous choice. However, the category here is "Entries", and so I can only discuss the hand in relation to those who chose to establish spades, where the care of entries does become paramount to making the hand.
It should be evident that you simply don't have many entries, and must make use of the ones you have carefully. How many do you have to the closed hand? And, secondly, how many do you have if you cash three trump tricks before touching spades (as this declarer did)? And how many do you have after knocking out the A of spades if East returns a club -- a completely unhelpful sluff & ruff? Actually, though the count of entries vs. needed entries might be worth looking at in a post-mortem, in play, I would think the astute player (going after spades) would simply say to himself, "I cannot waste an entry to the spades. On 4-2 spades, I need three entries after the first two rounds." You don't have to count. Just delay trump entries until dummy is out of spades and such an entry allows you to ruff a spade in dummy. Two to ruff out East's remaining two spades (on the likeliest split) and one to cash the 5th spade -- and not so incidentally, position oneself for the diamond hook. With that mind-set, he would want to knock out the A of spades with the K (hopefully establishing the Q as an entry for round 3) and not lead trump until he has no other access to the closed hand's spades.
With two spades leads taken, now trump leads to the closed hand will serve the dual function of getting out the defense's trump and allowing declarer to ruff a spade in dummy. You have every trump down to the 6, and so if spades are no worse than 4-2, you needn't fear an overruff. If you take three rounds of trump, you can ruff only one spade. It works on 3-3 spades, but not on 4-2. If you take two rounds of trump and then knock out the A of spades, that defender can play the third round himself.
Here's what this declarer did: Opening lead won in dummy, willy-nilly, cash three heart tricks (yikes!), spade to the K and A, ruff a club in the closed hand (it does no good to ruff in dummy, for his lone trump is already "busy", i.e., already pegged for ruffing a spade). Q of diamonds drawing the K and A, J of diamonds reveals the bad split, so he ruffs a diamond with the last trump in the closed hand, cashes the queen of spades and ruffs a spade with the last trump in dummy and now loses the next two tricks to West's diamond and club. Down two. (This is the declarer referred to above who didn't even chance a play that might have worked: When diamonds don't split, and he can't possibly set them up, he still had a chance on 3-3 spades. Instead of ruffing a diamond, he should have come to the Q of spades and ruffed a spade. Tough luck. But had spades been 3-3, he would have salvaged the contract on a sudden burst of luck to offset bad luck elsewhere, a not too uncommon happenstance. Even if it wouldn't have worked here, certainly declarer should be testing that possibility instead of wiping out any chance for his contract.)
What should declarer have done? Well first he must recognize the scarcity of entries to the closed hand and not eat up three of 'em right away. Declarer must play the K of spades at trick two. East will almost surely take it. If he doesn't, he might wind up with egg on his face. Ruff a club return in the closed hand, cash the Q of spades, and ruff a spade, trump back, ruff a spade, trump back, overtaken in the closed hand, of course. The spades have been established and declarer need only cash the third round of trump, take your diamond hook, and claim. You still have a trump (an extra entry if you guard them well) and the long spade.
Suppose West has the A of spades and holds off a round? (Much the same holds if East ducks the K of spades and declarer then finesses into the Jack.) No problem. Ruff a club return in the closed hand, ruff a spade, trump back, ruff a spade, trump back, draw the last trump (the closed hand's fourth), don't forget to cash the established spade, take the diamond hook and claim. Yes, if West had the A of spades, the contract could be set with a diamond opening lead and diamond continuation upon getting in with the spade, but you didn't get a diamond opening lead, and West didn't have the A of spades).
So-o-o-o-o-o, declarer has to make up his mind which hand he wants to set up and guard entries to it jealously. I would not criticize the declarer who went after diamonds. Hey, nobody's going to get 'em all right and at least that has a reasonable chance. But if you're lucky enough to settle on establishing spades, you must hit them before drawing trump, since trump are your only entries back to the spades (after the second round). A singleton spade with 6 out is far less likely than a singleton diamond with 5 out. If you want to exploit diamonds, a singleton isn't so far-fetched, and you can live with drawing trump if they are 2-2, if diamonds are 3-2, or if the A of spades lies with West when neither suit breaks evenly, as outlined above. Not such a bad situation, though it happens nothing works here. But there's a big difference between pursuing a reasonable line that doesn't happen to work, and recklessly squandering entries and half-heartedly pursuing a line that could have worked.
Oh, I can't believe all the squandering of entries here. "Oh, but only one line works?" So what. I've already acknowledged that going after diamonds is understandable and excusable, and if only one line works for those who choose spades, so what? Is that an excuse for not preserving entries until they are at their most productive? A declarer who (for no good reason) squanders those entries that might have proved valuable is going to be a declarer who squanders entries when they would have proved valuable -- as this declarer himself demonstrated by chewing up entries to the long spades before they could be productive as entries. What a hand!