Curious


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

A rather curious hand, both from the standpoint of the play and the final results. Five people made 7 no here, while six went down, ranging from two tricks to four. Curiously, no one went down just one, which one might have expected, though on second thought, the cards do explain down two: those who test diamonds first and find that they don't split benignly, now have no way of picking up 12 tricks. While those who test clubs first and who could easily lose a club for 12 winners aren't bidding 7 no go down one, are they? A few lucky breaks in the other suits and they'd have their grand contract, but by the time they discover those lucky breaks aren't to be had, it's too late to play for down one.
I printed out a couple who made it and a couple who went down. With the two who made it, there was, as you might have guessed, the identical error from West, which was the discard of a club on the second round of hearts. In each case, declarer sluffed a club before West has to discard, and that may have been a factor in inducing West to surmise that it wasn't a suit declarer was hanging onto or intending to exploit. But as it happens, declarer doesn't need his 7th club. He only needs that fourth club to be a winner. Six club winners will do it for him, and did do so twice that I know of.
West isn't truly squeezed. He can afford a spade discard, and a little surprisingly, he can even afford a diamond, allowing declarer to run the suit. Five diamonds along with 2 spades, 2 hearts and 3 clubs will bring declarer up one short. But the question is, can West see this, and I'm going to have to say no. In one case, South didn't even bid clubs, and in the other, he only bid the suit once at the two level. And remember, declarer did pitch a club on the second round of hearts. When you start seeking a rationale for advising West to save clubs, you're clutching at straws fueled by hindsight. I like to confine myself to fairly obvious situations, not that there isn't plenty to learn from not-so-obvious situations, but because there are plenty of wrongheaded, costly errors in obvious situations, and my suggestion is to clear them up first.
Nor can I blame declarers who didn't make the hand, since there's no way to make it with best defense. I might offer a caution, however, against grand slams when you can't just about count the 13 tricks. For you give up a lot when you kick away a little slam. Here, the difference in the matchpoint score between little and grand slam was 17.5 points, not so great a gain in going for the grand (which depends on a defensive error), nor so great a loss for choosing the much safer and always makable little slam. While the difference between little slam and going down 3 (as four people did) was 60! Quite a hefty loss, one would say. In little slam, any declarer should be able to bring the contract home by losing a club and picking up six club winners and six elsewhere.
However, there is one defender who has little excuse for not saving that fourth club. That is the one who knew his jack of clubs was protecting the suit. Opening lead a heart to the king, three rounds of clubs, sluffing 2 spades and a heart in dummy. What does West need to know at this point? Declarer now cashes two top diamonds, a spade to the ace, queen of diamonds sluffing a club, ace of hearts sluffing a club (!). This may be what brought the 10 of clubs from West. Oh, pul-eeze. But wait, that's not all!
In sluffing two clubs, declarer now doesn't have enough winners even with 10 of clubs discarded! So West helped out a second time. On the 12th trick and last club lead, that worthy pitched the jack of spades in order to save the jack of diamonds, though declarer had shown out of diamonds on the third round! A richly deserved low score for West, though not so deserved by his partner.
As for the declarers that went down a bundle, well, down 4 was a zero, down two was 25, so holding it to down one would have salvaged something over a 25% score, and not to be sneezed at. Lemme see how declarer went down four: Well, at one point, declarer had an easy down one, for a not-too-shabby score as just mentioned. Opening lead the jack of clubs to the ace, clubs continue into fourth round, allowing West his trick, and at that point, with all the communication you need in spades, declarer had all the winners he could need plus one (a redundant winner). For he had six clubs, 3 diamonds, two hearts and 2 spades for 13, except that you can't win 13 tricks if the other guys have one. Still, it was a simple matter of cashing out those top tricks. But for some reason, after deliberately establishing the long clubs, declarer didn't cash them.
As for the declarer who went down 2, that's a little more understandable. Opening lead a heart to the king, three club leads establishing that the suit won't run. Now at this point, if diamonds will run, you've got twelve top tricks, and who knows what luck might befall you, somebody's squeezed in the majors, maybe, or the queen of hearts falls doubleton. You really don't like to give up quickly in a grand slam, do you? So declarer cashed two top diamonds, went to the ace of spades, cashed the queen of diamonds and found that that suit isn't breaking either. Now a diamond continuation allowed West to cash out two tricks, and then dummy was good.
Poor West, given no fewer than three four-card suits headed by the J. If declarer takes a heart lead, goes to dummy with a spade and leads the second round of hearts, West has no obvious choice for a discard (assuming declarer didn't bid clubs like crazy). Tossing a diamond certainly looks wrong. We can see that tossing a diamond wouldn't hand over a grand slam, but West can hardly know that. Which leaves a choice between spades, declarer's first chosen lead, and clubs, and I've already said West deserves a pass in that case.
But not so the West who watched declarer cash three rounds of clubs, on the last of which East shows out. You don't need to be hit over the head, do you? So the bottom line is that defenders should certainly be alert to the times when they're called upon to protect the fourth round of a suit with their four-card holding, while we're tolerant of the difficult ones to decide. "Let's not miss the easy ones," I've often said. And that was an easy one. West needs only save his last club and regardless how declarer squirms, he won't escape a down one.