And a Few More (Lessons)


K Q 6 5
K J 8
J 10 3
A 9 5
9 3 J 10 7 2
9 5 4 3 10 7 6
7 6 K 9 2
K 10 8 6 3 Q 7 4
A 8 4
A Q 2 Vul: N-S
A Q 8 5 4 Contract: 6 spades, 6 no, 3 no
J 2 Opening lead: Club or not a club

The hand has a number of lessons, and I'll start with the bidding. Six hearts had no chance. The 4-3 fit, called a Moysian fit, is often playable and even sought after at game and partial levels. After all, you can be in game at a level lower in a major than in a minor, with 20 more points to boot. But at the slam level, I would call it a poor choice indeed. There must be something better. Oh, if you play enough bridge and read enough columns, there's bound to be times when that's not true. But by and large, it won't do you well, or at least not as well as another denomination might have -- such as no trump.
Yes, something's out of whack here, for that's yesterday's opening paragraph. [I was then offering a daily hand.] But you only need change "hearts" to "spades", and the same principle holds. You wanna keep away from those 4-3 fits at slam level. If you don't have a better trump suit, yes, even a minor in preference to a 4-3 major, you are probably (not necessarily) well suited for no trump. No trump (often) gives you a lot of flexibility in terms of which suit you use to seek out your tricks, where naming a suit trump locks you into that suit. Here again, 12 tricks are a cakewalk in no trump where the 4-3 major has no chance on the 4-2 split. And if the suit had split 3-3? Then you make your spade slam, but you make as many tricks in no trump.
One person in 6 spades went down. So did one person in six no! That is inexcusable. Lemme see how declarer managed that. Oh! Oh, oh, oh! It turns out to be a completely senseless play. Opening lead a spade to the king, diamond to the queen, low diamond back to the J and K! Can't explain it. This can only be called bizarre. Declarer had already taken the finesse and with plenty of communication had the ability to repeat the finesse. Declarer gives up not an overtrick in three no (and I'll get to them in a minute), but a very fine 6 no trump contract. Undone by a simple finesse? No. Undone by not taking a simple finesse.
Four people made the no trump slam, but more interestingly in a no trump game, there were 21 declarers. Nine made 12 tricks and 12 made 11. The former got a 70.37% score, the latter a 31.48%. So that's no small difference here, just short of 40 matchpoints kicked away for not picking up the 12th trick, while those in game, making 6 only kicked away about 28 for not being in slam!
This difference was perhaps induced by the opening lead of a club (which all but one of those who held themselves to 11 tricks got). And yes, we can see declarer's hold-up to exhaust the short club hand of clubs in case the diamond hook is off. But there's one fly in the ointment: You're going to be finessing into the hand with the long clubs! If the hook is off, it doesn't matter whether you held up or not. Furthermore, declarer can only pick up 8 tricks without the diamond hook (though to be sure, he doesn't know spades aren't splitting 3-3). So it evidently costs a lot to duck 2 club tricks if the hook is on and doesn't really cost a lot to abjure the hold-up even if the diamond hook is off (for then everybody's in trouble, unless we're wrong about who has the long clubs). Well, couldn't West have led the 6 of clubs from shortness? Absolutely. It could have happened, that is. People have been known to lead a short suit in order to hit their partner. And yet, they've also been know to lead their fourth highest with no bid suits, such as here. And 50% finesses are known to be on more often than 6 cards split 3-3!
Well, I'll leave the lesson up to you. Not holding up is wrong only if the diamond finesse is off and West led from a short club suit. If either factor is not there, you'd do well to forego the hold up, perhaps even one trick, since with a successful finesse in diamonds and 3-3 spades, you'd have 'em all. Yes, I think it'd probably be wise to forego the hold-up, but there is always a bit of danger of hindsight when we know what works best. But that's no small number of matchpoints riding on declarer's decision.
Yikes! I see that another declarer, after a successful diamond hook by way of the jack, led the 10, and when covered, played the queen underneath the king! Don't these people look to see what's played first? That's the only explanation for that play.
Here's another lesson: Club to the Q, 7 back to the J, K and A, three spade leads, declarer noting the 4-2 split, J of diamonds covered by the K and the record ends. Don't cover the first of equal honors! That is discussed here Okay, there are exceptions. A doubleton K will prompt me to cover the first if there is any chance I'll be promoting a 10 9 in my partner's hand. But by and large, when you'll still have flexibility after the first round (as opposed to a doubleton K), you want to hold off and cover the last of equal honors. There are several reasons for this, the first being a negative, that it can't do you any good! You cover a J to promote a 10 or maybe a 9. Well, you can't promote the 10 because you can see it. And as for the 9, well, you can cover the 10 on the second round, when the suit is clarified and your partner can't have the A or Q. Which brings me to a second reason for not covering the first of equals: your partner might have a stiff ace or a stiff queen. It doesn't matter how improbable that is. The point rather is that it can't do you any good to cover and might do you harm.
And then there's the tenuous reason that declarer just might decline the hook when an honor isn't covered. It shouldn't happen. A declarer should decide what finesses he needs and note, if it's a suit he needs to develop, that the only alternative is to drop a stiff king. But it does happen. It simply does. And there again, however unlikely that development, you have nothing to gain (on the above hand) by a first-round cover. No fewer than 5 of the 9 defenders against 3 no who had the J of diamonds presented to them covered.
[Since that didn't affect the hand, I'm not sure why I spent that much time on the first round cover. Still, I'll stick to what I said, most notably that a stiff ace or stiff queen in partner's hand would make East very, very embarrassed.]