A Peripheral Benefit

K
10 5 3 2
K 5 4
A K 6 4 2
10 9 5 Q 8 6 4 2
J 8 6 4 9
10 9 8 3 2 Q J 7 6
J 10 8 7
A J 7 3
A K Q 7
A
Q 9 5 3

This hand not only had the primary advantage in no trump over the major of a higher score in a matchpoint event, as referred to often, but also a subsidiary, impossible-to-foresee advantage that hasn't surfaced before (in these pages), at least for a few declarers. Six hearts brought 69.35, 6 no 87.0. A rather modest advantage of a little over 17 matchpoints. But here's the corker: Six no with an overtrick brought 96.77, and now that's a more substantial advantage over 6 hearts of better than 27 matchpoints. And what did six hearts plus seven bring? Well, there wasn't any such result. You can't make an overtrick in hearts, barring an improbable opening lead from the thrice-guarded jack, which no one was making.
Well, how do you make an overtrick in 6 no? Granted it can be done only with shoddy defense, and I've already said it was impossible to foresee. Still, it's there for those who already have chosen the superior contract of six no.
Three defenders allowed that overtrick. Two did it on an incautious discard of the 4 of hearts at trick 7, a suit you aren't discarding in a heart contract. And the third? Well, let me go through it: Opening lead the 10 of spades, won by the stiff K in dummy. Two clubs were cashed, West sluffing a diamond. A of diamonds, club 9 to the K, two more clubs, as both defenders sluff two spades and declarer the spade Jack. Now the K of diamonds is cashed, declarer sluffing his low heart, and now declarer comes to his hearts, cashing them, then the A of spades and the 7 of spades for an overtrick. During the last two heart tricks, East sluffed the 8 and Q of spades to save the Q J of diamonds, though declarer has already shown out in the closed hand and has no entry to dummy in case that 5 of diamonds looks threatening.
Was East faked out by that J of spades discard? I would say so. I don't often presume to describe a player's mind-set, but I don't know how else you'd look at the discard of valuable spades in order to keep perfectly useless diamonds. So an extra 10 matchpoints to the no trumpers added to the extra 17 for being in no trump. Not a great disaster for the defense, of course. But the last 10 points were totally inexcusable.

In discussing the advantages of no trump, I stated that often declarer has the ability to abandon the suit he expected to be his flagship when it splits badly and find his tricks elsewhere (which cannot be done if you've named that suit trump). I would say the overtrick in no trump here is related to that advantage, if peripherally so. It just happens that declarer's only loser in a heart contract is a heart and cannot be escaped, but in no trump can be escaped -- sometimes and with poor defense, yes, but nevertheless escaped by a few.