A Disparity


A K 10 7 5
8
K 6 4 2
Q 8 6
J 9 Q 8 3 2
K J 7 2 Q 6 5
10 9 7 5 3
5 3 2 A J 10 7 4
6 4
A 10 9 4 3
A Q J 8 Vul: N-S
K 9 Opening lead: various

After slams, I guess my favorite type of hand is 3 no where the results range from going down to overtricks. Three no generally offers clear evidence of who goofed, if anyone, though I suppose ultimately, there's no real justification for preferring this to trump contracts. Here there was a range from minus 2 to plus 2, a range of 5 tricks. I printed out 4 different plays, those making 7, 8, 9 and 11 tricks and found:
I'm not sure that there were any goofs where declarer is down one. Notwithstanding a clear 26 hcp's, I just don't think the hand can be made with good play all around. Not on a club lead. Declarer can't hold up, nor can he keep West out of the lead on two heart leads from East, which the defense can effect since the 5th spade can be manufactured only by losing the lead twice to East.
Well, wouldn't East be squeezed on 4 diamond leads, or 3 diamond leads? That would bear looking at. Declarer should cash three diamonds with the closed hand's honors (to preserve an entry to dummy). If East sluffs a spade, the hand is over. Declarer cashes A K and plays a low spade to the Q and is primed for 11 tricks. If East sluffs 2 hearts, declarer cashes the A of hearts, again A K of spades and low. East has only spades and clubs left, and though he can now cash 2 spades, will eventually have to allow declarer a trick to the Q of clubs. Oh, to be sure, declarer takes a gamble in reading East for exactly 3 hearts, but I'm only referring to the potential that is there, not to what is obvious. So East's only completely safe discards on the 2nd and 3rd rounds of diamonds are a heart and a club. This cuts the club danger to 3 tricks, but doesn't in itself give declarer a ninth winner. Well, let's cash the K of diamonds and see what we get there. The sluff of a spade still holds, only missing an outside entry now, declarer would then have to lead away from his A K. West could win, if East ducks, and a club lead would mean three more losers. But the contract would be made. The sluff of a second heart still holds. The only sluff that doesn't give the contract to declarer is another club! This cuts the club threat to 2 tricks.
Still no cigar. Try as I might, I can't see a way to declarer's 9th winner as long as East retains 4 spades, two hearts and two clubs after 4 diamond leads. East has to be careful, of course. Here's another shoal East must cross with care: Without a spade sluff, declarer leads away from his top spades. On reflection, East might ask "Why didn't he finesse if he has the Jack?" But in the moderate haste of play, it would not be too unlikely that East would hop up with the Q first round, lest declarer win the first round with the J. Now declarer can run spades when he regains the lead. But if East has what it takes to duck, declarer is still without a 9th winner.
Down two: A diamond to the ace! This doesn't set up the club threat, but we have just seen that that threat can be reduced to a fleabite, not to mention giving declarer his 8th winner, with a lot of touch-and-go decisions yet to be made. It looks to me that the contract can still be set. Declarer always looks to be in danger of losing two spades, two hearts and a club. Nothing seems to work for a ninth winner, though the first seven are off the top and the 8th is easily established.
But wait! I said declarer should duck a spade to East. Which will perhaps be easier said than done! Suppose West hops up with the jack of spades instead of lazily playing his lowest spade. Now you don't duck a lead to East. Either West holds, or you win. At this point, it isn't a club lead from West that would hurt declarer, but a heart. It looks to me that declarer couldn't avoid losing two hearts along with 2 spades and the ace of clubs. Oh, me, this is a difficult hand, but that's what makes it interesting.
So what happened that this declarer was down 2? Well, first he cashed his A K of spades, then continued the suit, and now failing to find a 3-3 split, he won't have the two entries he needs to knock out the fourth spade and cash the fifth. This declarer let a club lead from East (in on a the third round of spades) ride around to the queen -- oh, me. I didn't notice this, but East led the four of clubs, and declarer's 9 was holding the trick until declarer overtook it! Did he think he needed that entry? No, he didn't need a third spade winner at this point. Had he let the 9 of clubs hold and played the K of clubs, that establishes a 9th winner! I'll let you sort out whether there'll be an overtrick or not.
Down one: well, even though it "should" go down one, that doesn't preclude the possibility that each side made a serious error cancelling the other out. Lemme see: a club lead to the 10 and king. A spade to 10 and queen. A wise decision. Takes only one goof by the opposition. A heart through the A 10, taken by declarer and now his only hope is a 3-3 spade split, but evidently it was not to be. [Actually, it was time to run his diamond winners to see if he could induce a foolish discard. If spades were 3-3, they'll wait. This was entered a couple of years later.] So after running his 8 winners, declarer led the 10 of hearts to the jack, the king was cashed, and the last two tricks went to East with the ace of clubs and 8 of spades.
There was good play all around. [Not sure what I meant. Declarer's play looks rather tame to me now.]
Making on the button: Club deuce to the ace! ! ! ! ! Need anything more be said? Oh, please, you've got to go in with the 10 there. If your partner has the king, it wins, and if he doesn't have the king, you don't want to allow declarer separate winners with the K and Q. Oh, there are bound to be hands, particularly in trump contracts, where you make the "right" play here and then watch declarer sluff his only loser in that suit on dummy's winners -- or find that he won trick one with a stiff honor. Oh, yes. But there'll be an easy ten times as many occasions, if not closer to twenty, when going in with the lower honor to keep your ace sitting over dummy's honor will serve you better.
Two overtricks: This was played by the North hand above, and the opening lead was the jack of clubs, taken by the king. Well, the defense got off to the best lead, any way you slice it -- despite underleading his ace, this defender then has the same A J tenace over the club queen that the first defender had, playing the 10 on a lead through the queen. I wonder how this led to two overtricks. Oh, that was it. Declarer led a spade to the jack and ace, then came back with the ace of diamonds and led a spade to the 10 and queen. A heart lead would have done it for the defense at this point, that is, followed up by a second heart lead if declarer leads a fourth spade.
But what happened was that declarer's LHO now led the 4 of clubs! Letting the 9 hold! That's the second defender who underled the A of clubs in favor of the 4. Only this defender didn't get a return favor from declarer. The rest was a piece of cake: Cash two diamonds, ace of hearts, then the last diamond, getting a spade discard from LHO (the East hand above)! That spade discard was a guard to the second highest spade, of course. Now declarer cashed three spades and lost a trick to the ace of clubs at the end. Well, with defenders like that, overtricks are going to happen.

Whew, what a hand. Opportunities offered and missed.
Note what happens if you exchange the 7 and 8 of spades here. Do you see what you've got? Yes, you've got a makable contract where the spade holder gets the lead only once, and so declarer can snap up a heart lead and pick up 4 spade tricks, 4 diamonds, a heart and a spade. First round declarer covers West's card at the lowest possibile level. The 9 gets the 10 and the rest is history. Nor does it help East to duck a round. Suppose West plays the J first round. You win, come back with a diamond and now play the 10 to East's queen. The K and 8 will finish off the suit with an entry in diamonds.
I mention that because of a private grievance at the quickie analyses we are so often given, free of charge, of course. "We could make 3 hearts, or 4 diamonds on the hand," etc. etc. Oh they're doubtless right on occasion, but it's my belief that they're wrong more often, and in any event, we don't know when they're right unless we take a few minutes to analyze a hand, which is to say their claims are meaingless. If we want to know, we have to discover it for ourselves.
If hands can hinge on who has the 7, who the 8, you know it'd be a rare, rare player who could tell you -- that is, whom you could trust to tell you -- in the post-mortem, as the cards for the next hand are being drawn, who could have made what in another denomination.