Gifts All Over the Place

	A 9 8 5 3
	Q 10 6
	A 9 4
	K 5
J 4 2		------
8 5 3		A J 7 4 2
K 5 3		10 8 7 2
Q 9 8 3		J 6 4 2
	K Q 10 7 6
	K 9
	Q J 6	Contract: 6 spades
	A 10 7	Opening lead: 8 of hrts, 2 of spds

Seven people made the spade slam here, while two did not. Of the seven who made the slam, how many do you think did it without a gift from the defense? Ah, some of you got it. None! Four declarers got a heart opening lead, finessing East out of that valuable J. Of course, declarer always has a heart loser, but it's the diamond suit that's at issue. With that configuration, even with an onsides K, you've got a diamond loser -- unless you get help from another suit. And that's where the heart suit comes in.

With that lead, declarer can sluff a diamond and now the king being onsides becomes important. Well, I hate to critique a defender for an opening lead, commonly considered one of the toughest decisions and certainly with nothing looking very attractive, though any of the other suits would have been safe (yes, even a low diamond lead). Two declarers got an inexcusable second hand high from East on a low heart lead from dummy. C'mon people, You wanna get something with that ace if you can. We see that declarer can finesse against the J in either direction and might have here. But you don't want to hand it to him. And the seventh?

This declarer didn't get a heart lead and he didn't get East jumping up second hand on a low heart lead. But he got something just as valuable. Indeed, when I went back to see how soon, I found the answer was very. Opening lead the two of spades, declarer winning with the king and continuing with two more rounds of trump, East sluffing a heart and two diamonds. Lemme go over that. East sluffed a heart and two diamonds. After round two, he held four hearts, four clubs and three diamonds and, board was showing three hearts and three diamonds and his discard on the third round was a diamond! So he now has two diamonds and four hearts to battle a dummy showing three cards in each suit. You go figure.

I need hardly continue. Declarer didn't get a heart sluff. But the diamonds behaved very nicely, the now doubleton 10 being smothered, allowing the 9 to win the third round.