There is nothing like a Fit


K Q J 6
A K Q 8 4 2
Q
A K
3 9 8 7
3 J 10 9 6 5
A K J 10 6 3 2 9 8 7
Q 8 5 2 7 6
A 10 5 4 2
7
5 4 Vul: E-W
J 10 9 4 3 Opening lead: K of diamonds

South WestNorthEast
Pass 3 5 ! Pass
5 Pass 6 All pass

Oh, please. How can anyone, after cuebidding to ask for his partner's best suit, look at that marvellous spade fit and bid hearts? And they're both majors! Could North possibly have been cue-bidding his hearts, meaning to confirm the spades in a search for grand slam? Or did he want to announce that hearts will do very well for trump, thank you. I dunno. Either interpretation makes the 6 heart bid look pretty bad. As stated in regard to other powerful long suits on a hand with a balanced fit elsewhere, that powerful long suit will win just as many tricks (given the fit) when it's a side suit as it would being named trump. You don't need to name it trump to get its full value and don't want to name it trump with a balanced spade suit sitting there. Or, if it was a wrongheaded attempt to say, "Okay, for spades, and by the way, I've got hearts, do you wanna go for the grand?" I can only say, you just can't afford to make ambiguous bids at the six level. Take your little slam and be happy. That was costly. Very costly. Minus 9.88 IMP's when making 6 spades was plus 8.05, for roughly 18 IMP's lost on ignoring the fit!
To be sure, not everyone in 6 spades was making it! In fact, four went down, one going down 2 tricks! One declarer, looking at the above layout, where clearly he would want to play it as a dummy reversal, conceding one diamond trick, drawing trump and establishing the 6th heart, with all the right entries there, failed to see it that way. Here's how it went: A of diamonds, 10 of diamonds continued, ruffed with the Jack! The opponents have 10 diamonds and declarer fears an overruff on the second round? A 9-1 split? He now took two rounds of trump with the K and Q, cashed the A K of clubs! The A K of clubs. But those are such lovely entries which you're so desperately going to need on the uneven heart break. Why are they wiped out so early? Was there a reason for it?
Now came three rounds of hearts (nothing daunted by a trump remaining out but you know he's going to get his come-uppance pretty soon, no?), sluffing two clubs, ruff a heart low, lead the jack of clubs, covered, ruffed with the 6 and overruffed! Ya know sumpin'? Had declarer not ruffed the second round of diamonds high, he would have had the contract with high ruffs. Ruff a club with the J, and the closed hand now holds the two high trump.
It's not the line I would recommend for the obvious reason that I wouldn't have liked to let that last trump remain at large, though declarer can live with it by the line just mentioned. Still, I would feel more comfortable ruffing a second round of hearts high, come back on a trump lead, ruff another heart high, back on a trump lead, draw the last trump and claim. There I would be moving directly on both establishing the heart suit and drawing trump. Those who simply like to name that powerful long suit trump might note that you get just as many heart winners that way as you do naming the suit trump. In spades, you cash the top three cards (interleaved with ruffs) and the sixth. In hearts, you cash the top three honors, concede rounds 4 & 5 to East and cash the 6th. In spades you don't lose any heart tricks, while in a heart contract, you lose two in addition to a diamond. The fit in spades is what makes the hand, ensuring the same number of heart winners and no heart losers.
That is definitely an inferior line of play, when the hand is so simple. After ruffing the second round of diamonds, cash the top heart and ruff a heart high. Oh-h-h-h-h, a bad break! Does it queer the contract? Absolutely not. Back on a trump lead, ruff another heart high, back on a trump lead, cash the last round of trump and run 'em. Actually, one could draw three rounds of trump first, take three rounds of hearts, ruff a heart, back with a club, ruff a heart and dummy's good on a club return.
Here's another faulty line: Ruffing the second diamond low, three rounds of trump, three rounds of hearts, ruff a heart, back with the ace of clubs. Can't find anything wrong with that, huh? And now the king of clubs. Now the king of clubs! Why on earth! This declarer was just one more heart ruff away from claiming. Now she ruffed a heart with the ace of spades, and that lovely 8 of hearts went useless onto West's queen of clubs, which was the setting trick.
Another declarer did much the same thing except at a different point in the hand: A heart lead! Okay. Three rounds of trump, two more hearts cashed and a heart ruffed. So far, so good. Back to the ace of clubs and then king of clubs! Oh, I see declarer's scheme. Not getting a diamond lead, this declarer sluffed two diamonds on the heart honors and thought he was gaining, evidently by avoiding a diamond loser, when in fact he neither gained nor lost on that line (so far), but soon wound up losing an extra a trick, substantially through, well, being careless about entries. Cashing out the K of clubs too soon (like the previous declarer) was one way of failing to cash out with the loss of only one trick. The hand would have looked like this just before cashing the K of clubs:

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

He wasn't dead yet, of course. Indeed, he wouldn't have been dead after cashing the K of clubs, since he had the 6 of spades for a re-entry. Ruff a heart, get back and concede a diamond at trick 13. The problem was, however, that he was thinking of an absence of diamond losers rather than the presence of 12 winners. Ruffing that diamond gives declarer the same trump winner as ruffing a heart. But ruffing a heart establishes the 6th heart as a winner, while ruffing that diamond doesn't do anything for the hand. But that's what happened, after cashing the K of clubs. Actually, he would have been all right ruffing that diamond, come to think of it, if he hadn't cashed the K of clubs. He'd get back on the K of clubs, lose a heart and claim. So he could do one or the other: cash the K of clubs, ruff a heart and claim, conceding a diamond, or ruff a diamond, back on the K of clubs, concede a heart and claim. Unfortunately, that declarer did both: cashed the K of clubs and ruffed the diamond, so happy was he in the presumed advantage of sluffing two diamonds while other declarers had to put up with a diamond loser. That's the one line that doesn't work.
At trick 12, the 8 of hearts went to the jack, and 9 of diamonds actually won the last and setting trick. So declarer did have to lose a diamond trick on the hand after all!
And now the declarer who went down 2 in six spades. Diamond opening lead and then a switch to hearts, the ace winning, and now the two of hearts was ruffed with the two of spades -- and overruffed! Down already at trick three! Undone by the 3 of trump! ! You've got the top five trump and declarer can't spare the ace for a ruff there? No excuse. Further, you don't need to ruff a heart, given all those entries, until trump are out!
Now West went back to diamonds, ruffed with the jack -- this declarer also? -- one round of trump was drawn, two more hearts were cashed, 8 of hearts ruffed, club back to the ace, and the four of hearts was ruffed! Whoa! This should have been recognized as a winner, and thus not cashed until trump were out. Ruffing your own winner can be hazardous to your score. Now the ace of spades was cashed, which was only the second round of trump, and a club to the ace was ruffed! East had sluffed a club on that four of hearts!. That's how this declarer went down two. With the top 5 trump in a 9-card holding, this declarer lost two tricks to the opponents' trump!
I have to make a confession, which is that I have never been particularly adept at a type of counting so beloved by professional columnists. And that's the counting of an opponent's hcp's and deducing that he can't have another big card or he would have had an opening bid which he didn't make, or conversely, deducing that he must have another big card for the opening bid he did make. I simply have not been oriented to that type of counting, in part, I suppose, because I've never noticed a hand, or had a partner point out a hand, where such a count would have worked.
Anyway, my point isn't to suggest that the columnists are beating a minor topic to death (though I may feel that way), but that the types of counting I have advocated and pointed out are elementary compared to what the columnists often display (and suggest could improve your game). There you have to remember the bidding and the honors the opps have played in all suits led and would do easily as much adding and subtracting as are necessary in "my" type of counting. Here declarer only has to look at his 26 cards, and counting out the hand should not be difficult for anyone above novice.
You see the top five trump, three top hearts and two top clubs, for 10. Play the ace of hearts and ruff a heart high and get back on a low spade to dummy. If everyone followed to the second round of hearts, you now have five heart winners for twelve. Whoops! Someone shows out, but at least you know spades weren't 4-0. Okay, ruff a heart again high in the originally long hand, which now adds a sixth trump winner for 11, and your sixth heart will stand up for 12. You return to dummy with another trump lead, draw East's last trump, run hearts and claim, conceding a diamond. Your winners are six spades (four in dummy and two ruffs in the closed hand), four hearts (the top three and the sixth round) and two clubs.
I recommended ruffing a heart high immediately, above, but you don't need to ruff a heart until trump are out. One round of spades will tell you that trump can't be worse than 3-1, meaning you'll have two trump left in the closed hand after trump are all out. Which means you'll be able to ruff two hearts after drawing trump and get back by way of club honors. That too is not a brain-busting conundrum, is it?
The hand also counts out from the closed hand, but involves some risks that make this line less appealing than establishing the hearts. Diamond opening and continuation. Cash two rounds of trump, looking for a 2-2 split, which you don't get. Cash the top clubs, cash three rounds of hearts, sluffing two clubs, ruff a heart (the closed hand now has 2 trump), ruff a club (with a high honor, of course), ruff a heart, and draw the last trump. Obviously, you have to cash some high hearts before all trump are out, not to mention ruffing low, which you can do as the cards lie, but which runs a risk you needn't run ruffing hearts high and counting out from dummy.
Whoa! This is one on me. When I went back to see the IMP's for making six spades, I noted that 2 made 7! Obviously you don't get a diamond lead, in which case the dummy reversal is clearly called for to avoid that ruffing club hook that one declarer took. But I was so caught in diamond leads and how easily the hand makes on a dummy reversal, plus noting how one declarer thought he was saving something by discarding two diamonds, which in fact led to down one, that I didn't note how else to play the hand on a heart lead.
These two declarers found an unimpeachable line to 13 tricks without risking anything. Trump were drawn first, of course. These declarers let the heart suit go hang after the top three were cashed, sluffing two diamonds. Now the clubs were cashed. A heart was ruffed, and the jack of clubs was led. When the queen of clubs covered (and of course declarer must push the jack through if uncovered, or he's going down), declarer was on claim for 13 tricks. A pittance in IMP's (from 8.05 to 8.52), but well played, the type of play that gives you confidence in your partner. But I remind the reader that you don't have a valid ruffing finesse there until trump are are out. If East still has a trump, West would do well to go low on a J of clubs lead.