A Return to Roots


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

I originally put this under "ruffshort", a bit of a misfit in that though declarer had lost a trick by failing to ruff in the short hand, it had nothing to do with delaying trump. Then when I went to the opposite situation, i.e., instead of declarer being one short, this one was a trick over what should have been the final result, I found perhaps the most flagrant wastage of a four-card holding as well as perhaps the subtlest, since a the highest card in the four-card holding was a 7. To be sure, it's mathematically possible for that card to be a 6, but you can't get any lower than that since it couldn't work with a 5. You might ruff with the 5, but you can't capture a lead in a suit where you have 5 4 3 2. So I went back and found I'd stopped collecting at my 25th example and that it had been two years since I'd picked up such a malfeasance. But here it is. East at his first opportunity to discard threw a low club, though he had spades to spare . . . but then, the spades were headed by a J and the clubs by a mere 7.
Well, there it is. If the spades can't possibly help you -- declarer with plenty of trump had ruffed the second round -- and the club 7 could possibly be a key card, doncha think saving the club would be wiser?
I have the printout of a declarer who wound up plus 4, for a rather shabby 30% score, and another with the same opening lead who would up plus 6, for a pretty nifty 76%. The first declarer's malfeasance wasn't exactly a matter of delaying trump but of not using an idle trump. As for the second declarer, I don't know at this writing which defender goofed or how.
The two declarers not only got the same opening lead, but the first 8 tricks are identical! And I can't go beyond that for plus 6 declarer evidently claimed there. Hm-m-mm. Hafta see if that was a legitimate claim.
Anyway, East took the first trick and continued spades, declarer ruffing, followed by cashing two rounds of hearts, then the top two clubs, and then with remarkable luck in clubs, cashing the 8, sluffing a low diamond. And here's where declarer went wrong, for she followed that magnificent 8 with a not so magnificent 6 when East has the 7. She sluffed another diamond, which eliminates the possibility of losing two diamonds, but since the A is onsides, that did more harm than good.
East took that 6 of clubs at trick 8 and shot a diamond to his partner, who captured the K with the A, and the record ends here with declarer losing a spade, diamond and club. There were two trump in dummy (and no clubs), so there was nothing to be gained by sluffing a low diamond, allowing East the trick. Had the A of diamonds been offsides, that would've been merely a novel way of giving up two diamond losers. And if the A of diamonds is onsides, that's a not-too-clever way to cough up a trick needlessly.
As for the other declarer, I've already said that the first 8 tricks were identical, but I'll hafta rectract that, since declarer's play on the 6 of clubs was not given. The hand (where the record ends) looked like this:

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

Interesting. Very intersting. East sluffed the 2 of clubs on the second round of hearts! That 7 of clubs would've been worth a trick! Declarer at this point, of course, can cash his clubs, sluffing two diamonds and his plus 6 is very legitimate. For the record, plus 5, where declarers would wind up with good play all around, offered 53%. So this declarer picked up about 53 points on that discard.
When I started this website where I could follow the play of every trick, I "discovered" about five or 6 principles or maxims which when ignored led to recurrent losses. I say "discover" referring only to myself and in no way to suggest I'm the first to recognize them. I only say that I'd never seen them discussed in print, though I did find one of them tossed out in the ACBL Bulletin some months after I'd chanced on it. In fact, I rather suspect experts would say, "Well, doesn't everyone know that?" To which I could only say "No."
Anyway, the first of these, the very first, was the value of four-card suits and how easily tricks were thrown away. Indeed, they were so common that I quit collecting them after I got up to 40 or so.
Anyway, here you see it. Incidentally, a second discovered maxim, indeed the one, the only one where I've seen someone else refer to it in print, is "Keep the Same Number of Cards in a Suit as Dummy Shows". And East would've done well to pay attention to that one also. True, there are only 2 clubs in dummy, but the number in the closed hand is unknown while the number of spades is not, declarer having ruffed the second round. So why on earth is East saving any more spades than dummy shows?
The seven, yes. Almost the lowest, for the 5 at the top of a four-card holding, can't capture anything. The 6 being a key card at the top of four cards would doubtless be rare, but you see the 7 here. Declarer can sluff a diamond on the 8 and by ruffing the 3, i.e., ruffing out East's 7, that is, declarer could come back and sluff another diamond. But since the A of diamonds is onsides, it does declarer no good.
Incidentally, East was a "firster", my term for those who get rid of that key card at their first opportunity. It's just puzzling. He knows declarer has no more spades in the closed hand, and only one in dummy. Yet he hangs onto 3 spades so as to discard a club. The 7, yes.
This hand could also be slotted under "Winner-Enablers". The trump in dummy makes the 6 of clubs an enabler, as the 4 of diamonds is an enabler to the K because the A is onsides.
A day later: I checked my stash of "Four-Card Suit" examples and found that I'd quit collecting at 25, not 40 as mentioned above. And the last one was entered more than two years ago.
"Keep the Same" refers primarily to keeping the same number as dummy shows, but by extension, it applies to the closed hand also, insofar as you can judge. Above, East had two reasons for keeping his 4-card club suit, to wit: his spades beyond the number dummy shows are useless, and secondly, declarer might have started with 4 clubs in the closed hand.