An Intriguing Hand


A 10 4
K 3
Q J 7 4 2
J 10 4
9 8 Q J 7 6
A 9 8 5 4 2 J 10 7 6
8 6 K 10 9 3
9 6 5 8
K 5 3 2
Q
A 5 Contract: 6 clubs, 6 No
A K Q 7 3 2 Opening lead: A of hearts, 9 of clubs

This is one of those hands with a hidden potential here and there that make analysis an interesting pursuit and make bridge the game it is. I could put this in about four or five categories, all of which I will cover here in this catch-all bucket. It could go under Squeezes, Squeeze Defense (Psorting out the Pseudos), Squeeze Defense (Don't Rectify the Count), Covering Equal Honors and Third Hand High. Is that enough?
I'll start with squeezes and defense against them. My first thought was that declarer had a squeeze in 6 no. I came to that rather hasty conclusion by figuring out what East would have after 8 leads (two hearts and 6 clubs) and since he'd have to keep three spades, he could have only a doubleton K of diamonds. The hand would look like this:
A 10
------
Q J 7
------
9 8 Q J 7
8 5 4 ------
------ K 10
------ ------
K 5 3
------
A 5
------

It would look as though East has been squeezed out of control of diamonds, and indeed, if the lead were in dummy at this point, East would indeed have been squeezed. Declarer would now take the diamond hook, cash the K of spades and claim a good dummy. However, the lead wasn't in dummy, which I hadn't taken into account in my first analysis, and so there's no squeeze. But wait a minute, sez I, 10 or 15 minutes later. Why can't declarer use one of the club entries to effect that diamond hook without using the A of spades and then run clubs. The end position would look like this before the lead of the last club:
A 10
------
J 7
------
9 Q J 7
8 5 4 ------
------ K
------ ------
K 5 3
------
------
7

Declarer leads the 7 of clubs, sluffing the 7 of diamonds, and East is indeed squeezed, declarer now having sufficient entries to effect the squeeze. If the K of diamonds goes, declarer cashes the K of spades and claims a good dummy. If a spade goes, declarer goes to the A of spades and back to the K and 5. But wait a minute. There's a fly in the ointment. Oh, this'll work on the A of hearts opening lead, which a lot of declarers were getting, and if so, they missed a squeeze. And it'll work on a club opening lead, if West captures the Q of hearts lead. But you see what I'm getting to: West must not take the first round of hearts. Declarer then has no way of rectifying the count, losing one and only one heart. The end position would look something like this:
A 10
K
J 7
------
9 Q J 7
A 5 4 ------
8 K 10
------ ------
K 5 3 2
------
------
7

Declarer leads his last club, sluffing the K of hearts, and East isn't in the slightest inconvenienced. The trick not taken, represented by that K of hearts, allows East the luxury of an extra card, and he sluffs a low diamond. If declarer ducks a spade, East takes that trick and the K of diamonds. If declarer goes to the A of spades and throws East in with a diamond lead, East now has Q J to lead into declarer's K 5, for a second trick to come. By giving up a trick early, the defense comes to two tricks later. Delayed gratification, the psychologists call it.
Well, let me cover some of the ways declarers and defenders handed their opponents favorable scores. Only one declarer was in no trump and he made it, though not through his own steam. He got the A of hearts opening lead and a heart continuation, and so at that point could have effected the squeeze described above: go to dummy, take the diamond hook, cash out a second round of diamonds, whatever E does, and now run clubs. East cannot survive the 10th trick club lead.
This declarer didn't come close to that squeeze. He took the second heart lead and ran six consecutive clubs. But the goat here is East, who threw the 3, 9 and king of diamonds on the last three clubs. Why on earth he would throw the K of diamonds and not the 10 if indeed he must throw a diamond is puzzling and bizarre. But he shouldn't have been throwing either. When push comes to shove, you've got to start throwing the useless cards. East has to throw five cards on the run of the clubs. Well, four are easy, and he should start with those. He cannot use the 4th spade, and since declarer is out of hearts, he can't need his hearts, and he can always spare a diamond. As for the 5th, well, it's gotta be a diamond, since he must keep those three spades to inhibit the run of the suit. And of course, that declarer couldn't use that doubleton K of diamonds, as described above, since he now had only one entry to dummy for the finesse, and hence, could not use the third round of diamonds if East declines to cover.
[I have often said it's a poor practice to run your best suit until you've done all your housekeeping, setting up the winners you'll need. I've argued that there about 19 chances out of 20 that you'll hurt yourself more than you'll inconvenience an opponent. Well, I didn't say 20 out of 20, did I? But yes, here's a case where a not too skilled declarer came out smelling like a rose because an opponent played even more incomptently than he did!]
There are several reasons why you'll want to discard useless cards first, instead of playing squeezed a trick or two early. One is that you may not be squeezed at all. What's just as likely is that declarer doesn't see the squeeze (as here) and you're home free if you'll just hang onto your key cards. Further, the situation might be clarified a trick or two later if you'll just hang on, perhaps by your partner's discards, perhaps by declarer showing out of some suit. Here, there's just no reason for hanging onto the 10 of hearts, which can't win a trick unless East gets the lead elsewhere in the first place, which would mean the setting trick right there. Just no reason for it.
The tally shows that three declarers were off one in 6 clubs, two in 6 no, three off 2 in 6 clubs, one in 6 no. I looked at their play and found the rather expected: those who took the diamond hook had 11 top winners and cashed their 11 top winners. All of those down two didn't take the diamond hook and thus wound up with 10 top winners. So the hand would seem to fit another category, also, namely taking your natural finesses. But it will have enough lives without appearing in that category.
Four declarers made 6 clubs, which of course has a better shot at success than 6 no because of the ability to ruff out diamonds, which several did. Yet every successful declarer got a gift from the opposition in the improper cover of the Q of diamonds. Question: How many consecutive diamond leads can declarer take on the cover and how many on the non-cover. And the answers, of course are respetively 3 and 2. And does this make a difference? Well in a couple of cases, the cover was too early to know how declarer would have played the hand, and so there's no definite answer. But I printed out one where it most assuredly did make a difference. Opening lead a club, Q of hearts taken by the ace and a club continued. Doubtless the best defense. If only his partner had been up to that level, we might have had a hand with no serious error. How many entries does declarer now have to dummy? The answer is two, of course. And how many does he need to get that very necessary 5th diamond? He needs three -- which the cover gave him.
Q of diamonds, covered by the K, then ace, back to the J, ruff a diamond, high of course, back to dummy with the 10 of clubs, and ruff another diamond, and bingo. Declarer can now sluff a spade on the K of hearts and another on the long diamond. Bid and made -- with a little help. Don't cover the first of equal honors! What never? Well, with a doubleton honor, I would by and large (not always) advise it, and there'll doubtless be a few other reasons. Nevertheless, your basic orientatation toward equal honors should be to cover the last one.
With one defender, it was a matter of a diamond lead through the Q J (played from the other side of the table). Do not go up third hand automatically. Defender was looking at 10 diamonds! If we presume for the nonce that our partner wouldn't underlead an ace against a slam contract, and I don't know if I've ever seen that, there are really only a few permutations left for declarer: he either has zero, one or two guards to the ace. And you tell me which one works going up on that lead!