Dummy Might Have Helped


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

This hand shows both the power of the forcing game -- and how declarer might have counteracted some of its devastating effect. Opening lead as given, ruffed in the long hand, a diamond to the K, the 10 of spades back, losing to West's K and back came another heart, ruffed. I confess that on my first glance, I didn't understand why some would make and others go down, nor why all in six who went down did so with two undertricks. Nobody was minus one.
Well, I soon saw the reason: I had allowed myself to fall into the insidious clutches of hindsight. It just seemed so natural to me to cash the A of clubs and take the club hook through the K J. On a second look, I saw that there's a two-way finesse for the club Q, and if you guess wrong, you're gonna lose a second trick. But why a third?
After ruffing a heart return following that losing spade hook, declarer cashed one more round of trump, then went to the K of clubs and finessed a club into West's Q. West then led a third heart, this also ruffed in the closed hand, so the layout looked like this:

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

Declarer held the high trump and runnable diamonds, but he has no access to the high trump and that's why everyone going down on a wrong guess for that pesky queen was going down two. And that, I might add, was why it seemed so obvious to me to finesse the other way. Declarer necessarily blocks the club suit to take that wrong-way finesse. You will note that if we give East the Q of clubs and declarer finesses the wrong way, the club suit isn't blocked, and he can withstand getting forced out of the last trump in the closed hand, since he'd then go to dummy with a club and draw East's last trump with the 9.
Yes, declarer's still down (on that hypothesis), and a second undertrick is a pinprick compared to what's lost going down at all in a slam contract. Had East the club Q, blocking the club suit is incidental, so why talk about not going down two? Who cares? I.e., compared to guessing the Q right. Yes, true enough. Still, I think there might be some value in noting that declarer can accept the third force (along with two trump leads) if he has an entry to dummy and can then draw East's last trump with a seemingly innocuous-looking 9. Maybe next time he'll be in a five-bid and can afford a loss to the club Q, but not a loss to the club Q and a blocking of the club suit. No?