A Tricky Hand


Q 10 9 6
K 9 3
6
Q J 10 9 8
J 7 5 4 2
Q J 8 7 5 4 2 10 6
7 2 K Q 4
6 4 2 A 7 5 3
A K 8 3
A Contract: 6 spades
A J 10 9 8 5 3Opening lead: 2 of hearts
K Opening lead: K of dia (played from N hand)

A tricky hand, requiring a modicum of care. But perhaps not too tricky for all that. Indeed, when played from the North hand (i. e., as a dummy reversal on this layout), there's really only one card you've got to take care of before cashing out, the 9 of hearts. But if you don't take care of it, you're going down. Anyway, here's what you've got to do: Unblock the hearts (which some defenders facilitated by leading that suit on opening lead), knock out the A of clubs, and whatever the return, you've got to use trump to ruff the 9 of hearts and now lead out trump. You get a rather unpleasant 4-1 split in spades, but then, you pick up the jack stiff, so you can ruff high and lead low to the other holding. Hence: Say East returns a trump. You let it ride to the Q, picking up the jack, ruff the 9 of hearts with the Ace, cash the K, and back on a low spade to draw two more rounds and claim. Suppose East returns a diamond. Win, of course, low to the Q of spades, noting the fall of the jack, and you've only got to ruff one card, the 9 of hearts, in the closed hand with the A, cash the K, back to dummy's trump and claim.
Well, suppose East doesn't take his ace of clubs. Okay. Switch strategy. Cash the A of diamonds and ruff a diamond, back with the 9 of spades to A, noting the 4-1 split, ruff another diamond with the 10, overtake the Q (for we can afford the apparent waste of honors a lot more than we could afford cutting down declarer's 4-card trump holding), cash one more round of trump with the 8, and now run diamonds. East can ruff in at his leisure, but we'll still have a trump and a running diamond suit.
What if we get a trump lead. We win in the closed hand, cash the A of hearts and knock out the A of clubs and get another trump lead. You let it ride to dummy, ruff the 9 of hearts high, come back with a trump lead, finish off the fourth round and claim.
It requires care and all that, but still it's not terribly complex and certainly not beyond a careful, competent player. But here's what happened in real life: Heart to the A, knock out the A of clubs, take a trump return with the A, cash the K and now back to the Q and 10 and run clubs. This declarer's last trick was the lead of the 9 of hearts into the Q for the setting trick. There's no point going through this declarer's line, for I don't believe there was any way to recover after cashing just the top two trump. You've got to use your trump suit for communication. You have no communication in clubs or hearts, and with diamonds only by a ruff, which you don't want to do if you're ruffing in the other hand.
One declarer, after that killer spade lead, knocked out the A of clubs, took a spade return with the K, spade to the 9, run clubs, getting a ruff on the 5th round, overruffed with the A, A of diamonds, ruff a diamond with declarer's last trump, cash the K of hearts and lose the 9 to the Q. Just plain ordinary cashing out top winners. That's not bridge, not very much of the thinking part, anyway. Cashing out top winners, interrupted only by the need to knock out an ace is novice play.
Another declarer got the K of diamonds opening lead. Now when the A of clubs is knocked out, that defender can't do the defense any good continuing with diamonds, and this declarer should have been successful, also. But no, this one also went quickly to trump, the suit you need to get back and forth. And what if I get ruffed in not drawing trump quickly? Well, then you're going down, but the solution isn't to invite going down by declining to do the housekeeping you must. You must ruff a heart spot. If you don't, you're going to have an extra loser and go down. Or, as mentioned above, if the K of clubs isn't gobbled up, forget hearts and ruff out your diamonds. Either way, you've got communication here only in spades!
Anyway, this declarer went from the A of diamonds to the A of spades to the A of hearts to the 10 of spades, and now he can't make it. He ruffed that 9 of hearts, but bear in mind that that hand now has only the K of spades for trump -- and the ace of clubs hasn't been knocked out. He knocked out the A of clubs and got a spade return from an alert defender. He now has no more trump in dummy (the South hand above) and no entry to his closed hand to draw the last trump except by a ruff that wipes out the card by which he'd have drawn trump. He took that ruff, ran his clubs now, but at trick 12 the defender with the last trump ruffed in and at trick 13, cashed the Q of diamonds. Down two.