Very Interesting


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

This hand was so interesting that I printed out the play of about 8 declarers who went down. There are a few verities that should be apparent to any experienced player, and I'll run through them. Any one-month novice should be able to see that you face four losers. Anyone with 6 months of experience should certainly be able to see that only the spade suit, where declarer must lose one trick, allows a possibility of developing a winner beyond the ace on which a minor suit loser can be sluffed. And anyone with more than a year's experience should be able to see that your entries to dummy are scarce and must be used productively, particularly on a diamond opening lead.
Several declarers very quickly wiped out any chance of making the hand. One ducked a diamond lead (!) and got a club shift back! Well, now, how are you going to avoid losing four tricks when you lose a spade trick? It's part of the genius of the hand that the opponents can't knock out both minor suit aces, and declarer should certainly want to take advantage of that fact and keep the stopper in the suit they don't attack. Go up on that A of diamonds and get on with the hand. Another declarer got a heart opening lead, taken with the A, and now led the Q of hearts to the K (! ! !). Since she had played the 5 of hearts on the opening lead, she was making sure she had no entries to dummy outside of the diamond ace, which is not the stuff by which a long side suit is developed. (Had she played the 8 of hearts on opening lead, she would have had an entry by way of the 5 to the 6, on the 2-2 split, and it would seem that'd be enough if she immediately hit spades, pushing the J through to one of East's honors. She would then have a trump entry, the A of diamonds, which might be knocked out upon losing a spade, and the A of spades. Which would be enough. Cash the A of spades, take a marked ruffing finesse against East's last spade honor, get back on the 5 of hearts to the 6, and you've got an overtrick! And one more: This declarer got a spade opening lead, took it with the A, cashed the A Q of hearts and then for good measure, the A of diamonds! ! ! So he made danged sure he wouldn't see the lead in dummy again. I don't know why.
Incidentally, if declarer ducks the spade opening lead, which he certainly should do, he's not in bad shape even if East immediately gives his partner a ruff! Please bear in mind that your primary goal is to avoid three minor suit losers. So we need only one sluff on the spades. But whoa. They got a ruff. So now we need to sluff two minor suit losers -- which you could do. After that ruff, you would have A 10 9 of spades, with Q 5 3 on your right, which should certainly allow you two sluffs, no? Indeed, if West had started with 3 trump on a 3-1 split, that would have been a very costly mistake for the defense. As it is, declarer could always draw trump in two rounds. Anyway, let West ruff. If he can do that, then you know just exactly how the spades lie. Whatever West returns, you take two rounds of trump, the first with the K of course, cash the A of spades, sluffing one minor suit loser, play the 10 of spades, ruffing out the Q, get back with the A of diamonds to cash the 9 of spades. The defense still has one trick to go, but you'll have your contract. You can sluff two clubs and lose a diamond (in addition to a spade and a ruff), or sluff a club and a diamond, losing a club.
That epitomizes, I believe, one of the recurring mistakes of declarers, i.e., the fear of losing a trick. But you've got good stoppers and can afford to duck tricks here and there.
Lemme run through a few others. Opening heart lead, taken with the A, then the Q of hearts was led to the K! ! ! I'll never understand that one if I live to be 100. Declarer should certainly let the lead ride to the K, for if you're going to be needing entries, it will be in the hand with the A Q of trump. Then run the J of spades. For all declarer knows at that point, it's the hand before the ace that has the K Q. Or he might have a double finessing position. And if his RHO takes the spade lead and gives his partner a ruff, well, the hand unfolds as above. Suppose East takes the trick with the K and leads a heart? Declarer wins in the closed hand, thinking he's going to continue a double hook in spades. But he would see that the double hook wasn't working, go up with the ace and lead the 10 of spades, ruffing out East's other honor, while the A of diamonds is still in dummy.
Oh, there are so many things he can do with that spade suit, largely because he's got both minor suits stopped (on the heart lead) and can easily afford one spade loser. (On a club opening lead, declarer's options are a little constricted. He cannot afford to lose a trick to the K of spades before trump are out and then get ruffed on his left. On the lead of any other suit, he could afford that, however. Clubs are different because without the A, he can lose two of 'em. Still, dummy's ace of diamonds remains intact. So declarer must take two rounds of trump, ending in the closed hand and lead the J of spades into East's holding. The defense cashes two clubs and knocks out the A of diamonds. Declarer cashes the A of spades, thinking he might get a 3-3 split, but gets something just as good. With his 10 9 8, he ruffs out East's other honor, gets back on a trump lead, and sluffs a diamond.)
This one should have been an easy one: spade lead ducked, shift to the K of diamonds, a fleabite for declarer. No, not a fleabite; a gift, really, since he can engineer an overtrick. Declarer now cashed the A of hearts and would have been on a path to that overtrick had he continued with another heart to the K. On a lead to the K of hearts, he would note the 2-2 split with pleasure, lead the J of spades, perhaps thinking of pushing it through, then note his LHO showing out, and go up with the A. He now has 10 9 8 of spades! Only one of them can be covered! And neither minor-suit ace has been knocked out! He has an ironclad re-entry to dummy after ruffing out the queen! So he'd have been looking at an overtrick.
Here's one more where the two sides traded mistakes: Diamond to the A, ace of spades, low spade taken by East's K, low spade, ruffed with the 8. Well, lemme go over the mistakes so far. I think East, who could see every spade but the J after one round, would have been far wiser to duck the second round with only the J out. If declarer has it, surely West can ruff, and if West holds that card, you don't wanna chew it up. Look what the defense could do in that case: West ruffs out the J, hits his partner with a diamond, and East leads another spade. Declarer can ruff high on that lead, of course, but what of it? The defense has two tricks at that point, and East has the K Q of spades! No sluffs coming in that suit, which means declarer will eventually lose two club tricks.
As for declarer, well, there are two basic principles he must pursue, one is that he's gotta get out trump when he's that dominant, and the other is that he must get something with that J of spades. Neither of which he comes close to doing banging down the A from on high and continuing spades. He might even be looking at a double finessing position, for all he knows. He isn't, but he's looking at something just as good. Note that he could live with either one round of trump or two, thus:
After the A of diamonds, A of hearts, heart to the K, J of spades into one of East's honors. They cash their diamond winner and knock out the A of clubs. Declarer leads a spade, thinking to continue the second half of a double finesse, sees West show out, goes up with the A and with East holding only one honor now and declarer holding one iron-clad re-entry, it's a simple matter to ruff out that Q, third round and get back to dummy with a trump lead and cash the two remaining spades for an overtrick.
Or, cash one round of trump with the K, J of spades into the K, spade back, ruffed, diamond to East's K. You obviously couldn't have afforded that with a club opening lead, but we're talking about a hand where that wasn't the case. This declarer isn't going to make an overtrick, but nothing should inhibit his making the contract. Club from East after cashing the K of diamonds, go to dummy with a trump lead, you have 10, 9, 8 of spades and a marked ruffing finesse against East's Q, allowing two sluffs when you return to dummy by way of a third round of trump.
But this declarer got spooked. By ruffing the third round of spades, high, he avoids a third loser for the nonce, and dummy is now showing the 10 9 of spades. It's enough, for he's only lost two tricks at that point and needs only one sluff of a club. As it happens, trump are 2-2 and declarer could still have made his contract with trump leads, ruffing out the Q of spades and returning -- but chickened out! He cashed a high trump, went to dummy with the 9 to the A, led the 9 of spades and when it wasn't covered, ruffed! Well, if each side is laden with mistakes, one of 'em's bound to come out smelling like a rose!
I don't want to flog this hand to death, but what was done with it was so interesting. Though it's a lot easier to analyze a hand when at leisure, looking at all 52 cards, please note that there's nothing all that esoteric about what the hand takes: you've got to get something with that J of spades and you've gotta draw trump, while being aware, especially with a diamond lead, that entries are scarce and you want to make each one count. If you pursue some combination of those two basic tasks, getting something with the J of spades and drawing trump as soon as practical, you should wind up on the right side of the scoring.