It's that Club Suit


Or is it the Spades?

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

Seven bids were common here and declarer would seem to have a spade loser, wouldn't he? The only possible sluff of a third-round spade would have to come from the club suit. But after the ace is played, East can cover every single club -- and should. A fair number of declarers were playing from the other side of the table and got a club opening lead! In a 3 no contract where you expect your partner to get the lead once or twice, I would think that a reasonable enough lead with an outside possibility of running the first five tricks. But against grand slam, I would hesitate about leading from that tenace position and instead would favor a spade or heart. However, that isn't the main point of this entry here.
One declarer, playing from the opposite side of the table got the Q of hearts lead, came to the A of clubs and cashed the ace of hearts, on which fourth hand discarded the 7 of clubs! I need hardly tell you that the Q of clubs, by trick 10, was used to sluff a spade and the grand slam was made. [Declarer must lead the suit four more times. But he's in the hand with the four clubs at that point and thus only needs three re-entries, which will be the K of diamonds, K of spades and 7 of hearts.] No, I'm not going to say the club holder shoulda known better. One might argue that with 3 spades and two diamonds showing in a dummy with powerful hearts -- that's the long hearts showing now -- the club holder with one more spade and one more diamond than dummy might have reasoned that he can afford a discard from one of those suits. But I don't know. Though declarer can ruff a third round diamond loser, if a discard from a twice-guarded queen gives a third-round diamond winner, he can then sluff a spade on it, no? So with the long clubs hidden, I don't know that I'd blame the defender for that club discard. Unfortunate, but not a dumb error.
As the category and the above layout would suggest, however, it's the defender who could see the club length that I'm interested in. Opening lead a low diamond, taken by the K in dummy. The A of hearts was cashed and a heart was led to the K, East sluffing the 8 of clubs! He can see that dummy has 5 clubs and should know that he must keep step with that number. Another heart was led, West sluffing the deuce of diamonds, East the deuce of clubs. And that was that.
The 8 and then the deuce! I hate that. He has a lovely club holding he apparently wants to tell his partner about, but by the time he gets done signalling that powerful club holding, he no longer has a very powerful club holding. Make sense? And I see this all the time. [I regard the discard of the 8 and then deuce as a signal to partner, not a defender wondering what his best discards should be.]
Of course, one club discard might have been too many as the other defender learned to his presumed discomfort. This declarer winds up in the "other" hand from that of the first declarer. But clubs haven't been led yet, so he has an entry to the long clubs on which he gets two club leads. Yet he'd used up his K of diamonds on opening lead, and now had only two re-entries, enough to ruff out East's holding (before the second discard), but not enough to cash the 5th club. So the first club discard was not costly. The second . . . well, read on.] And you don't think declarer pounced on those club discards to establish a club winner? Well, the funny thing is, he didn't! And I didn't even see that until I started typing this up. West was the ultimate culprit here for not keeping the same number of spades as dummy held! Here's how the hand went:
After three rounds of trump, a club to the A, and a club was ruffed. East now holds only the K of clubs and it'll be a cakewalk to ruff out one more club and cash a fourth-round winner, no? Declarer now continued with three more trump leads, sluffing a club, then a diamond, then club! Declarer has cut his clubs down to the same length as East holds! Incredible. West in the meantime, sluffed a diamond, a spade and a diamond! He sluffed a spade from that kinda powerful Q J 5 holding to keep three diamonds, where dummy shows only one, and declarer could clearly have ruffed a diamond in dummy had he any losers in the suit. [Q J 5 looks kinda powerful, that is, against a grand slam where dummy shows three cards in the suit and only one honor.]
After the last round of trump, declarer cashed the A of diamonds. The hand looked like this:

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

Declarer, who'd earlier sluffed a diamond on a trump lead, cashed the A of diamonds, sluffing a spade. West had voluntarily taken himself out of the spades sweepstakes. And East? You'll note that he's squeezed on the lead of the A of diamonds. He must keep a guard over that Q of clubs, and so gets down to two spades himself. Declarer now went to the K of spades, came back to the ace and won the last trick in his grand slam with the 6 of spades. Amazing.
Lemme go over that amazing sequence once more: East quickly cut himself down to two fewer clubs than dummy held and declarer had easy access to establishing a second club winner on which to sluff a spade. Declarer didn't notice, however, and began sluffing clubs himself. Now West cut himself down to one fewer spade than dummy holds, with a not inconsiderable Q J 5, to hang onto a suit where declarer could have effected a ruff, if he had a loser in it, and didn't. Now East, with a twice-guarded 10 of spades might have controlled the third round of the suit, except that he had to guard the Q of clubs. And thus the grand slam came prancing home.