This hand has a rather storied history. I first picked it up a few weeks ago, where I figured there was something amiss about the takeout double by North with four cards in a tenace-ridden major and a powerful eight-card solid minor (after the bidding goes 1 D by East, pass, 1 H by West). I mean, there is such a disparity in strength that one would think you'd want to announce the solid, self-supporting suit right away rather than suggest roughly equal holdings in the two black suits. Oh, of course we might miss out in choosing the minor. Just give South four spades with that thar Q, and it would certainly on a 3-2 split, possibly on a 4-1, bring in as many tricks as in a club contract and a lot more points. Indeed, if the defense doesn't lead a diamond on opening lead (and a lot of opening leaders didn't), and if spades split 3-3, spades would be the better contract. Do you really want to bank on those two if's? Wait till I tell you what happened to one declarer.
However, I didn't know where I'd slot the hand and dismissed it from thought. But then the hand cropped up with a vengeance. On the first resurgent page, I'd pencilled the note "The forcing game". For such a lesson leaps out at us in spades. Which led to some bizarre results, depending (mostly) on whether the defense went after the forcing game or not.
The first declarer was in 5 spades redoubled and making for 1200 points. The next showed a declarer in 6 spades, doubled, down six! for minus 1700! And the difference here was the forcing game. In the first case, the opening lead was a club (!), and when the ace of spades was knocked out, back came a heart (!). Well, that's like candy to the declarer. Declarer cashes his last spade honor, and when the suit doesn't break evenly, he runs his clubs until East ruffs in, at which point dummy holds the last trump and all them clubs. Plus 5. This side bid diamonds and hearts! So why the club opening lead? Oh, of course, sometimes with a singleton, you might lead a side suit that the opponents have bid, but here there's no singleton, and one would think the best defense would be to attack with their strong suits.
Could East have saved the day (after that club opening lead) by playing the K of diamonds when in with the A of spades? (Declarer had led low to the Q of spades and back to the K, taken by East.) If declarer ruffs in dummy, that would give him a trump in each hand, including the high one in dummy, while East has two trump. But dummy would be on lead. Declarer runs clubs until East ruffs in, wherein he must ruff with the 10, for if he ruffs low, declarer overruffs with the 8 in the closed hand, enters dummy with the A of hearts, draws the last trump and claims! So East ruffs with the 10, the second trick for the defense, but that A of hearts in dummy and 8 of spades in the closed hand will bedevil the defense, it seems to me. If East leads the A of diamonds, declarer ruffs in dummy and runs clubs until East ruffs in, at which point he is overruffed, and the diamonds are set up. Down a mere one. (Or in other words, it makes 5 spades doubled & redoubled a little more understandable.)
No, it looks to me that it is necessary to have that A of hearts wiped out on opening lead. Then East could lead a heart when in with the A of spades and avoid setting up the diamonds. If declarer ruffs and cashes his J of spades, hoping against hope for a 3-3 split, he's out of trump now, while East still has one, allowing the defense to capture the lead and run hearts. Indeed, it's easy to see how a declarer went down six in that slam contract! Declarer's winners would be two clubs, a heart, the Q of spades, the J of spades and a ruff of the second round of hearts. That'll do it. Declarer might have ducked the second round of hearts (the setting trick right there), so as to handle the third round in the closed hand. He ruffs that third round with the 8, and now not knowing the split, ruffs a diamond and cashes the J of spades -- learning the bad news. East can ruff a club now and the hearts will run. Declarer gets one more winner that way, if that's any consolation. Down five!
An opening diamond lead would be all right, too. Declarer ruffs in dummy, leads a spade to the Q and back to the K. East wins and leads a heart. As above, East has two trump while declarer has one in each hand -- not knowing the split. Declarer runs dummy's clubs. East ruffs the third round with the 10 and forces dummy with a heart lead. Declarer tries to run clubs, but East ruffs and is overruffed with the 8. East has retained a high diamond honor, and now can win a diamond lead (all that the closed hand has left) and pursue hearts.
So it would seem that all the defense need do is lead one of the two suits they've had been bidding to beat 5 spades (redoubled). It would have meant a lot.
Well, lemme look at the other hand, down 6 for minus 1700: Opening lead was indeed the Q of hearts. Declarer wins, comes to the Q of spades, back to the J, taken by East who leads the A of diamonds. This was ruffed in dummy and the spade K was cashed and that was all she wrote. East still has a trump, while declarer has none, and so East ruffed in on the third round of clubs and pursued hearts. Declarer had won two spade leads and ruffed once, and had the top heart and the top two clubs for winners. Down six.
Another declarer, and here I'll grant that the forcing game wasn't germane to the defense, made a desperate stab at 3-3 spades and went down eight! That was eight in a freely bid slam, not a sac, for the opponents hadn't bid above the 3 level! Which must be something of a record.
Here's what happened: Opening lead a heart. Declarer played the J of spades (East going low) and then went to the queen and back to the A of clubs, and those four tricks were all he took. No, he didn't even cash a second round of clubs. Now he led a spade and, uh, well, they didn't split 3-3. East took the 10, cashed the A, meaning there are no more trump in play, and now after cashing two top diamonds, he hit his partner in hearts.
And lastly, here's a more normal down one. Opening lead a club! Same as the defenders who allowed 11 tricks in 5 spades redoubled. Lemme see if it's played the same. No, not the same. Spade to the Q, back to the J, taken by East who now led a club, declarer ruffing with the 8! That seems a little strange, though it didn't hurt declarer, for he has the A of hearts for an entry, and now after cashing the K of spades, declarer can play for down one by running clubs until East ruffs in with his last trump at which point declarer can claim for down one, holding good clubs and the last trump. No forcing game here either, giving declarer a good board. Just an A 10 with two kickers that declarer can't escape.
You might note how an above defender ducked two rounds of spades, keeping declarer in the dark about the split. Three-three? You make six. The down-eight declarer above went for the gold of a 3-3 split. But when the defender wins the second round of spades, declarer finds out on the next round that he doesn't have a 3-3 spade split while still on lead and can (some of the time) play for 11 tricks.
This is a freak hand, of course, and the declaring side isn't in its best contract: five clubs would have been cold. And as such, it's perhaps not the best hand for illustrating the effectiveness of forcing bids. For I certainly don't want to induce any thought that freak hands are prime territory for this strategy. Actually declarer doesn't have to have that skimpy a trump suit. The majority of your opportunities will surface on fairly "normal" hands, with a 5-3 trump holding, perhaps, where declarer is forced down to four cards in the long hand by trick two, or a 6-2 maybe, while a defender with four trump is poised to pump declarer one more time or two more times.
But that was their oh so meagre chosen trump suit and the defensive red suits are so powerful that it does demonstrate the forcing game at the top of its effectiveness -- down six! no sac! freely chosen! -- and also demonstrates how some defenders had no conception of the power they held even when declarer was ruffing, indeed because he was ruffing. A power unnoticed to the point of letting a 5-bid make, as the defense tamely led declarer's best suit.
No, you're not going to get many hands like this, but what of it? The main point to see is that pumping declarer in a skimpy suit can often prove to be a devastating defense. Make him ruff, make him have worse trump than you have! Declarer wins the early tricks as he ruffs, but you prepare yourself to ruff his big cards later and run your best suit -- often. Nor do you need to set your sights on multiple undertricks. Down one is often a good board if other declarers are by and large making.
K J 7 2
A
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A K Q 8 7 6 5 3