Losing Both Ways


J
A Q J 10 6 3
------
A J 9 6 5 2
10 8 3 A K 9 5
------ 9 5
A K 6 5 4 3 2 Q J 8 7
K Q 4 8 7 3
Q 7 6 4 2
K 8 7 4 2
10 9 Vulnerability: Both
10 Opening lead: K of diamonds

East South West North
Pass Pass 3 Dbl
Pass 4 Pass Pass
Dbl All pass

N-S lost in not doubling a 6 diamond bid by the opposition, which clearly cannot make, and then in not making their six heart bid. "Are we bidding to make or to sac?" is a question that might arise, particuarly when there are two super-fits. Here we have two 11-card behemoths battling each other and one of 'em can't make more than 11 tricks, the other no more than 12. Which means that the E-W players here had a good sac in 7 diamonds, N-S a good slam in 6 hearts with the most elementary application of common sense. Which wasn't applied.
Opening lead was as given, declarer ruffing in dummy, followed by a heart to the K and then a ruff of a second diamond. Whoa! Somebody hasn't figured out how he's gonna play this hand. What on earth is the point of ruffing a second diamond? It's a trick you've always got coming and an entry to dummy that declarer just might want later in the hand.
Looking at the N-S cards, we see a 5-1 side suit in spades and a 6-1 in clubs. And which is better? C'mon. The latter, with 7 cards to their 6 has to be better than 6 cards to their 7, though of course you could postulate a disastrous 6-0 split in the clubs and a benigh 4-3 in spades. But why bite off bad luck you have no reason to suspect is there?
How many entries to dummy do you need to establish clubs on a 4-2 split (given that you get two spade leads on a lead to the A) and how many do you have (after that opening lead)? Yes, we can see that clubs are splitting a benign 3-3, and might split a disastrous 5-1, but declarer has to look for likelihood and feasibility and a 4-2 split is the likeliest and coupled with 3-3 is a better'n an 80% chance. The answers to the above questions are, respectively, five and five. Hm-m-mm, I'll double check that in a minute.
So declarer would seem to have enough -- just enough -- entries to dummy for a 4-2 split -- and wasting one, which might've been calamitous is tolerable when he gets a 3-3 split. But he still went down!
Declarer should ruff that diamond lead in dummy, forget about diamonds, come to the closed hand on a trump lead -- you're gonna need to lead trump twice, ya know, before you can cash a long club. Now go to the A of clubs and ruff a club, learning that the split can be no worse than 4-2, go to dummy on a trump lead and ruff a club, getting an unneeded 3-3 split. The hand would then look like this:

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

With the lead in the closed hand. It should be evident that declarer not only could now claim a good dummy, conceding a spade to the opposition, but that had clubs split 4-2, declarer could've -- now -- ruffed a diamond, ruffed one more round of clubs, and then, as above, claimed while conceding a spade trick.
It's elementary. With that 11-card trump suit and that distribution, you look to see whether it would be more feasible to try a crossruff or to establish one of the long side-suits, and for reasons already given, the club suit offers itself for development on either a 4-2 or a 3-3 split. The hand just isn't suited to a crossruff. You have all of one side suit top winner, meaning you'd need eleven trump winners on a crossruff -- missing the not too shabby 9!
On the other hand, with a tidy 6-1 side suit and ample entries to those cards, establishing clubs looks to be far more attractive.
This declarer, however, didn't seem to pick up either strategy. After gobbling up an entry to dummy unnecessarily at trick 3, ruffing a diamond, he cashed the A of clubs and ruffed a club. The hand now looked like this:

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

Where it should be evident that not only should declarer have made his contract by simply drawing another round of trump with an honor in dummy, followed by ruffing another club but that even a 4-2 split wouldn't have destroyed his chances. I guess I might point out that the hand evolves benignly as a dummy reversal (q.v.). But this declarer didn't see it. After ruffing a club at trick 5, declarer lost a spade to East. It was a trick he was always going to lose, but was there any point in losing it there when he could simply have drawn trump, ruffed one more club and claimed, conceding that spade. Anyway, East won and came back with a low spade, which of course declarer could've won with the Q but evidently didn't think was likely, ruffing with the J in dummy. The hand now looked like this:
------
A Q
------
J 9 6 5
10 A 9
------ 9
A 6 5 4 Q J
K 8
Q 7 4
8 7 4
------
------

Wherein we see that declarer could still make his contract by virtue of the 3-3 clubs, and could've still be in a good position on 4-2 clubs if he'd just chanced the Q of spades on East's low lead, but no longer could make on 4-2 clubs -- which doesn't happen to be the split. So did he take a stab at that one last lifeline? Well, I'll let you be the judge.
Declarer ruffed a club with the 8 of hearts, and the hand looked like this:
------
A Q
------
J 9 6
10 A 9
------ 9
A 6 5 4 Q J
------ ------
Q 7 4
7 4
------
------

Where it should be obvious that a simple heart lead to dummy would've given declarer a good dummy. But he'd have none of that! He now ruffed a spade with the Q of hearts -- when a simple trump lead would've ended the hand -- cashed one of dummy's clubs, discarding a spade, led another club, which was ruffed by East with the 9, which declarer could not overruff.
Whew! This was a tough one to go through. With eleven trump including the top 5, declarer got zonked at trick 11, leading a suit East couldn't possibly have any more of, which indeed, would've been a winning card with one more round of trump drawn -- just a second round with a holding of eleven! -- How far into a hand do you wanna tempt fate with eleven trump? ! ? !