Keep on Plugging


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

An interesting illustration of forcing. To be sure, an opening diamond lead should beat the contract, with a trick coming in every suit. But not a few defenders were getting off to the A of spades lead and still beating the contract. How so? They did it by forcing, pumping declarer with spade leads. Declarer either gives up the trick, or he ruffs, and having started with only one more trump than West and needing to knock out the K of hearts and the A of clubs, declarer can't stand the second pump, even with the apparently favorable lead of the A of spades.
Curiously, when I noted that I'd printed out only declarers down 2, I went back and found that of 8 defeated declarers, only 3 were down 1, the rest down two. And of those three, two of 'em were defeated through the means of getting a diamond lead in there before the K of spades was established. But lemme give the sole case where pumping declarer led to down one before looking at a few down 2:
Opening lead the A of spades, followed by a shift to a diamond, won in dummy, followed by the K of spades, sluffing a diamond, then the J of hearts riding to the K, followed by another diamond, ruffed by declarer. The hand then looked like this:

5
4 3
9 6
J 4 3
J Q 9 8 7
7 6 5 ------
8 K Q
10 9 5 A 2
------
A Q 10
------
K Q 8 7 6

Declarer now has the same number of hearts as West with the A of clubs to be knocked out. He now cashed his A of hearts (getting the news of the bad split), then knocked out the A of clubs, at which point East continued diamonds, declarer ruffing. The hand then looked like this:

5
4
9
4 3
J Q 9 8
7 6 ------
------ Q
10 5 2
------
Q
------
K Q 8 7

Where it is evident that West has more trump than declarer and so the latter cannot avoid losing two hearts, a spade & club. Nor would it have done him any good to duck the diamond lead, retaining the same number of trump, since East could just continue diamonds -- or if out, switch to spades. Why not down two? I wondered. West must ruff in at his first opportunity and lead a spade or diamond, forcing declarer one more time, making his last trump good. Or so I thought. But declarer had sluffed a spade on the fourth round of clubs and so a spade lead could've been ruffed in dummy, letting declarer take the last trick with the trump queen.

------
4
9
------
J Q
7 ------
------ Q
------ ------
------
Q
------
7

In actuality, West chose to lead a trump, wiping out declarer's trump, but he held the last club and so was down only one. But wait. One more thought occurs to me. Could not East have effected another undertrick by forcing with a spade at trick 8? Rather than with a diamond.
------
4
9 6
4 3
------ Q 9
7 6 ------
8 K Q
10 5 2
------
Q
------
K Q 8 7

Now when declarer leads out his clubs, he can't sluff enough diamonds to prevent another force. West ruffs the fourth round of clubs as declarer sluffs a diamond, and now a diamond lead from West forces declarer one last time with his big trump, and West gets one more heart trick with the 7.
Whew! I hardly expected to take this long on one declarer's play, but different permutations kept popping up. Anyway, the reader will doubtless be able to see how so many went down two, once the defense found the forcing game -- and declarer was forced in spades. I was going to switch and give some declarers who made the contract and why, but I'm going to push that over to part Two.