Sheer Laziness

	Q 9 5 2
	8 5
	J 10 9 5
	A 10 9
10		8 6
J 9 6 4		K 10 7 3 2
8 7 6		K 3 2
K Q 8 7 3		J 5 4
	A K J 7 4 3
	A Q
	A Q 4	Contract: 7 no
	6 2	Opening lead: K of clubs

No one bid this 27-hcp grand slam and for a pretty good reason. You need more than just two kings to be onsides. You need for the onsides king of diamonds to be guarded no more than twice or you can't sluff your club loser. Even the little slam, which six people bid, requires a little more than one of the kings to be onsides.

If you get a club opening lead, you need it to be the diamond hook that's on or you're going to lose more than just an offsides king. Further, you still need that king to be guarded no more than twice. Even on a spade lead, where you can make 6 on an offsides king of diamonds, onsides king of hearts, you can't make with the heart hook off, the diamond hook on unless, again, that king is guarded no more than twice. So even the little slam is a lucky make.

Not much analysis is warranted here. I mean there are hardly any real choices to make. You can take your finesses only one way, and there are plenty of entries. So I thought I'd take a breather after the heavy analysis of the last hand. But here I was struck by the number of people who didn't make 13 tricks -- and what it cost them.

The slam bidders sucked up so many IMP's that the game bidders, even with three overtricks, got a negative score. But it dropped from minus 2.05 for three overtricks to -2.89 with two, -3.76 with one to -4.79 for none. This is duplicate, man. You don't get any points for making 4 spades without overtricks here. Indeed, with six trump in a solid suit in one hand and three aces, and remembering that you can't revoke on OKBridge, you'd have to try hard to make under 10 tricks. And the failure to realize more than 10 tricks, or more than 11 for some, more than 12 for others can, I believe, be attributed to nothing more than sheer laziness.

The declarers could see that their contract was cool and so didn't exert themselves for the extra tricks clearly available.

I got to thinking about my cavalier dismissal of analysis here a couple of hours later and decided the hand could use a little analysis and that laziness won't alone account for the dismal number of tricks. For surely it's a matter of entries as much as anything else. Question: On an opening club lead and granting that you don't want to start finessing until trump are out, how many entries do you have to dummy? And how many do you need?

The answers are, respectively three and two. That is two, provided you start with the jack of diamonds. If you start with hearts, then the answers are three and three. [The reason you need one less starting with the J of diamonds is that you're going to need an entry to cash the J of diamonds after three rounds of diamonds if East holds up two rounds, and you can use that same entry to take the heart finesse. But if you start with a heart finesse, you're going to need an entry to take the diamond finesses and then an entry to cash the J. Your three entries are the J to the Q of spades, the 7 to the 9 and the 4 or 3 to the 5.] So of course if someone gets sloppy on either count here, i.e., if someone starts hearts and isn't careful to preserve three entries, there goes one trick right there.

I referred to this on another hand where it mattered a good deal more: before you start drawing trump, when you can end up in either hand, determine what hand you want to finish in. Here, of course, you want to wind up in dummy. So I'm going to take the first round of trump with the ace (or king) and when I see trump are 2-1, I'm going to lead the jack to the queen. And continue, as given above.

Oh, we can see that that isn't absolutely necessary to lead the Jack. You could even lead the trey and still have three entries by later leading the 7 to the 9 and the 4 to the 5. But I don't like to stop and think and I know that by leading the jack, I'm preserving the absolute maximum number of low cards for later leading to dummy. Make sense? Now the jack of diamonds and a diamond continuation will allow you to pick up the diamond suit, and one more entry will give you a sluff of a club, and the position you need for the heart hook.

Here's a declarer who held herself to less than the max. Two rounds of trump were taken with the jack and king and now she led to the queen of spades. She still could have picked up the rest of the tricks (by starting with the J of diamonds), but the nine of diamonds was overtaken by the queen. Now came the 4 of spades to the 9 and she still could have taken 11 tricks, but the ten of diamonds, after a proven finesse, was overtaken by the ace! I can't explain it.

Anyway, I'd like to point out that you don't want to duck the club lead. Take your ace in case diamonds work out and you can sluff a club on the fourth diamond. You want to take the second round of trump in dummy in order to start finessing and not waste a single entry. You wanna start with the diamonds, for if the finesse is off, you're going to have the cards to sluff a heart on the fourth diamond, regardless of distribution, avoiding the heart finesse (as the defense cashes a club trick). But if the heart finesse is off, there's no way of avoiding the diamond finesse.

Then another thought occurred to me. I was gonna say, lady, it's not your concern whether the diamond hook is off or not! This is duplicate. If it's off for you, it's off for everybody, and it wouldn't jeopardize your contract. Then I realized it's even worse. She should be glad if the finesse loses. That's going to mean she beats everybody in slam (on a club lead).

So there are a few lessons here after all. First, the drawing of trump and preservation of as many entries as you can, as mentioned above. Then the oft-reiterated principle that unless you have a positive reason for not taking a finesse, you've got to be taking your natural finesses when there is little hope of dropping an honor. Then the sequence: you take the diamond hook before the heart because if it loses, you can avoid the heart finesse (on the long diamond). You would make 11 tricks thus with both finesses off! This declarer (and another) made 10 tricks with both on! Oh me.