Interesting -- Maybe Too Much So


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

An interesting hand, not for your run-of-the-mill novice, perhaps not even for your run-of-the-mill player. Can you make against any defense? Obviously not, with a heart opening lead. On any other lead, can you make? Well, yes you can, which I originally said required a little care, then thought requires a little luck and now think maybe it's some combination of the two.
Four declarers made the hand, but two of them got an outright gift, which I might as well get out of the way. One got a low spade opening lead, the 10 holding! So declarer only had to ruff two spades in dummy, which, with a 2-2 split, would be hard to miss. The other declarer got a heart opening lead, the queen, no less. Now when he knocked out the ace of diamonds and you woulda thought East would have been chafing at the bit to cash his king, he returned the three of hearts to dummy's J for God only knows what reason.
Of those who went down, nine declarers, that is, four got a heart opening lead, and my condolences, but there's not much to discuss about the hand with that lead. That leaves five who didn't take advantage of the opportunity offered. How would you play the hand? With identical 5-1 distribution in spades and diamonds and roughly the same strength (i.e., the second round is declarer's in each suit, leaving three small, and the first round of diamonds must be lost in any case), one could hardly blame declarer for pursuing spades, not having the advantage of seeing the defensive hands. Yet, that wasn't the undoing of most of the declarers who went down. Rather, they mostly went down out of sheer wrongheaded foolishness.
The first declarer in fact did kill his chances by going after the spade suit. Club opening lead won in dummy, spade 10 to the ace, 3 of spades ruffed, diamond king, to the ace, heart from East, spade 5 ruffed with the king as East sluffs off and declarer sees he's not getting a 4-3 break. Now it's too late to attack diamonds because declarer has only a low trump left in dummy, while declarer would need three entries (one after the third round is ruffed, one after the fourth round, and one to cash the 5th diamond). Further, since the trump is a low one, an entry only by a ruff, declarer couldn't be in dummy with all trump out.

The next declarer also took a club opening lead in dummy, spade to the ace, diamond to the K and Ace, a heart back, taken, ruff a spade, queen of diamonds sluffing a heart, ruff a heart! Ruff a heart! Just because you can? You've got a loverly 5-1 diamond suit, have led it twice. If you'll just ruff a diamond now, you'll learn if you've got a 4-3 split or not. Had declarer simply ruffed a diamond here, third round (he held K 5 of clubs in dummy after one trump lead and one ruff), he would have had his contract in his grasp. He would then return to dummy with a trump to the king, ruff another diamond, ruff a spade to cash the 5th diamond. Of dummy's three hearts, one goes on the ace of hearts, one goes on the king of spades, and one is ruffed LATER. After ruffing a heart, he ruffed a spade with the 3 and was overruffed. Oh, he was so close but just didn't grasp the potential of that diamond suit.
The third declarer seemed to throw away his contract at trick two: Queen of spades to the ace, club to the ace and a club back to the jack. You know, you don't actually have to count how many entries you need here. What you need to do is conserve your entries even before you know how many you'll need. Trick two should have been a diamond to dummy. You can draw trump in just a minute, using the top clubs as entries to ruff out the diamonds. Nor was this declarer going after spades. After wasting a valuable entry to dummy, actually wasting two entries, since he can use the A K both as entries to the diamonds and a drawing of trump, declarer got around to leading a diamond to the queen and ace at trick 4. A heart back, ruff a spade (how many trump are left in dummy?), K of diamonds, sluffing a heart, ruff a diamond (ah, nice split, but can declarer use it?), ruff a spade, ruff a diamond making the 8 the only diamond out, and now declarer with no more entries to dummy cashed the queen of clubs and king of spades and lost the last trick on the lead of the 7 of spades as the 8 of diamonds in dummy went begging.
Here's another one careless of entries. Club opening lead to the ace. King of diamonds to the ace. Why not let it ride and then lead a diamond to the K Q? If West has the ace of diamonds, he's either going to duck, letting you avoid a diamond loser or go up, making winners of both the K and Q, giving you a far better opportunity to establish the suit. Here we can see that the ace does not lie with West, but that might have been the key play that did it for declarers. Anyway, a club came back, taken by the queen. Ace of spades, ruff a spade, queen of diamonds, sluffing a heart, ruff a diamond . . . didja notice something, Mr. Declarer? The suit is splitting 4-3. Declarer pursued diamonds initially, but it didn't work out because he wasn't concentrating on diamonds. His error was to ruff a spade before diamonds were established. At the point where declarer learns that diamonds are splitting 4-3, he has only one entry to dummy left (after two trump leads and one spade ruff). After the wise diamond lead at trick 2, declarer should have taken the club return in dummy. Now he cashes the second round of diamonds, ruffs the third, noting the split, and he now has two entries by way of spade ruffs to ruff out the fourth round and cash the fifth, no?
The last declarer without a heart opening lead made a few rather foolish errors. Q of spades opening lead to the A, seven of diamonds to the Q and A, a heart return, club to the ace, cash K of diamonds sluffing a heart. Oh, he was so close here. Nothing wasted. Just a diamond ruff would have revealed the 4-3 split while he still had plenty of entries. But now came the ruff of a heart! You don't need that. Okay, you've gotta ruff that heart, but later, like maybe trick 13? But it's a trick you've always got coming that does nothing for hearts, while a diamond ruff does a lot for diamonds, like drawing those held by the defense, establishing the 5th diamond as a winner. A spade was ruffed, a diamond was ruffed and lo and behold, he still had a chance and could see the 4-3 split. Since only one round of trump had been drawn and only one spade ruffed, with an assured 4-3 diamond break, declarer could then have then gone back to dummy with a trump lead, ruffed the fourth round of diamonds, and then the ruff of a spade brings declarer to the 5th diamond. That late in the hand he could have made it if he'd only been looking for that potential in 5-1 diamonds. Instead, he now cashed the second spade honor, sluffing a . . sluffing a diamond!. Now he has no 12th winner, and I don't suppose it mattered a whole lot that his top spade was then ruffed!
Two people went down two on the hand, which I hadn't noticed until I went back to look at the play, but I don't suppose anyone wants to read about any more malfeasance. The basic lesson is that you've got to do one or the other, either ruff out two spades, looking for a 4-3 split, or two diamonds, looking for the same. I said above that I wouldn't want to critique the declarer who went for the spades. He merely picked the wrong suit. The malfeasance lies in not keeping an eye out for either. Here fate took this declarer to the second round of diamonds, where a ruff of round three would have revealed his 12th winner. The ruff of a second round of hearts was safer -- temporarily -- than the ruff of a third round of diamonds, but then he ruffed a third round anyway two tricks later and got that danged 4-3 split and didn't seem to notice. He only had to return with a second round of trump, wherein he needs that 2-2 split, of course, ruff a fourth round of diamonds, ruff a spade, not to set up spades but to access the 5th diamond on which he sluffs a spade.
[years later]. I haven't changed my mind on the malfeasance above, especially having the contract in hand and not taking advantage of it, sluffing a diamond, as one declarer did, when it's the 5-1 suit you can establish. But I've had some second thoughts. It appears that you cannot make without 2-2 clubs, but you've got 'em, so there's no point in speculating about a 3-1 split. Declarer has to be careful enough as it is on 2-2 clubs.
The key to the hand lies in hitting diamonds right away. Also, I would cash both the A & K of spades before ruffing. This is not usually advised with two top honors in a long suit opposite a singleton. You're just going to be ruffing a later round, increasing your chances of being overruffed. But here we're going to ruff the third round high, having extra high trump, and the main reason for cashing the top spades is that with three leads, we're going to learn quickly whether spades are splitting benignly or not. If you've knocked out the A of diamonds at that point, you're going to be able to test those two 5-1 suits sequentially, thus:
Opening lead a club that rides to the Q. Diamond to the K and A, heart to the A, cash A K of spades (sluffing a heart) and ruff a spade high. If the suit splits evenly, you come back on a trump lead, ruff another spade, back on a diamond ruff to cash the 5th spade. One of dummy's hearts goes on the A, one on the second round of spades and one is ruffed after one is sluffed on the second round of diamonds. But bad news on the third round?
No sweat, since we got diamonds started. Did that scalawag on your right sluff a diamond on the third round of spades? Okay. You'll note that if you cash the Q of diamonds prior to ruffing, East will be able to uppercut. To obviate that, ruff a diamond low (second round), back on a trump lead, cash the Q of diamonds, sluffing a heart, ruff a diamond (fourth round), back on spade ruff to cash the last diamond, and there'll be a 5th trump to ruff the lonely heart.

It was a tough hand to work out, sidestepping the knowledge that diamonds but not spades split 4-3. Here we'll establish the second round of diamonds, but then go on to test spades first. And it works. We learn of the unfriendly spades in time to exploit the friendly diamonds. Can declarer know to hit one round of diamonds before?
Well, I think I could argue that you've got to hit those diamonds eventually anyway to sluff that heart, and if this jeopardizes testing spades in any way, well, the danger isn't going to be obviated by postponing it. But ultimately, I'll have to leave that up to the reader. I think there's a lesson here, that if we want to test two suits sequentially and must knock out the ace in one, maybe we'd better do that right away so as to be able to test that suit if the first doesn't work out. But I'll leave it up to you whether that makes sense or this is too parochial a case to offer a lesson.