Interesting


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

One declarer (out of 3 in slam) actually went down on this cold contract. That was because she didn't take the club hook! A simple, elementary finesse that all her peers are taking. I just don't understand. Actually, in a way I do in this case. She thought she'd wiped out an entry. By golly, in looking at the hand again, she had wiped out all entries to dummy! Opening lead the K of diamonds, trump drawn in two rounds, with the A and K of hearts. Then the A K of spades were cashed and a spade was ruffed -- with the 9! A totally ridiculous pursuit. The spades can wait, no? Those are three tricks she's always getting, and now she has no entry to take the club hook. Oh, me. Very poor planning. Well, about 3 or four categories were manifested here, from Housekeeping to Cashing out Top Winners Too Soon, and what not.
However, the more interesting question was whether declarer would pull home 12 tricks or 13. Which was no small matter for those in 4 hearts, for the disparity was 47.5 matchpoints! Forty mp's for plus 6, 87.5 for plus 7. On a twelve-board match. Which is to say just short of 4 points shaved off -- or added onto -- one's final score! That's a lot.
Lemme start with the easy one, when the lead was the K of diamonds. This is a trump contract, and after drawing two rounds of trump, declarer took the club hook, East properly holding up until the third round, declarer went to dummy with the K of spades and cashed his last club, sluffing a diamond. Declarer now cashed three rounds of trump, sluffing the 10 of diamonds! East might note that if declarer has the Q of diamonds, he could simply have cashed it and ruffed that diamond. That plus West's opening lead should certainly have predisposed East to discard a totally useless J of diamonds. Oh, it's higher than the 8 of spades? Well, yes, a higher card, but not near as useful.
At the end of 10 tricks, before the last heart is cashed, the hand looked like this:
A 7
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10
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Q J 8 6
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Q J
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9
4
3
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On the lead of that heart, West isn't technically squeezed, since he can afford to sluff the Q of diamonds, if his partner will only keep the J. Still, West did lead the K of diamonds and surely in any rational partnership would properly assume responsibility for the second round of diamonds, not absolutely, but substantially promised in his opening lead. And on that rationale, one can say that West was "substantially" squeezed. But certainly East is not, and shouldn't have the slightest problem about discarding. For one thing, declarer has already shown up with 12 winners, 11 of them cashed with that heart lead, and the A of spades showing! So how can the second highest diamond possibly be of any importance -- unless, okay, to allow a possibly squeezed partner to discard the highest. But we see that cannot be a valid factor here, since West has already played to the trick. Well, can the 8 of spades be important? You betchyer boots. You can see it. It beats the 7 doesn't it? East should have been keeping the same number of every suit as dummy shows!
Before going on to the next declarer-play, let's just give dummy the 8 of spades and East the 7. Now do you see the logic needed. In that case, West, being the only one to protect the third round of spades would have to guard that suit and discard the Q of diamonds. Then East properly discards a spade and keeps the J of diamonds. Actually, this isn't the whole story, for the 9 of spades hadn't been played yet. So West would have to toss a mental coin. Does my partner hold the 9 of spades or the J of diamonds? If both or neither, it doesn't matter what West does. But if not, it does matter and West could certainly be exonerated if he guessed wrong. However, that wasn't a problem here and East coughed up a pile of matchpoints.
With the Q of spades opening lead, the logic isn't so clear-cut, I would say. Declarer wins, takes two rounds of trump, ending in dummy, takes the club hook, East improperly covering the first round, so declarer finishes off the clubs, cashes a round of hearts, then the A of diamonds and then two more rounds of trump. Here is the hand before the cashing of that last round of hearts:

A 7
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10
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J 10 ------
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K J 9 6
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9
J
5
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Yikes! I hadn't realized until I went to fill out the end position that East had taken himself out of spade contention, but totally, long before there was any need to feel squeezed. One spade went on the opening lead, one on the fourth club and one on the second last heart at trick 10. Of course, he'd taken himself out of contention on the first sluff, i.e., on the 4th club. Why would anyone in a trump contract, two diamonds and four trump showing in dummy, two trump showing when declarer has evidently drawn all trump. (Declarer took two rounds of trump and four rounds of clubs before East had any need to think. With the fourth highest diamond why would he save that suit. Oh, because his highest spade is the seventh highest spade?
To be sure, East's pattern of discards brings up another point to ponder. Sometimes, perhaps oftentimes, the best service East can do is to sluff a side suit totally, which is to say perhaps East isn't saving diamonds so much as giving his partner a count on the spades! Now if West had been watching the spades, and noted on the fourth round of hearts that declarer has no entry to dummy's A of spades unless he has that one spade West hasn't seen, then couldn't that defender have discarded his top diamonds, figuring rightly that if declarer has the J of diamodns, he's squeezed, and if his partner has it, then he'll let his partner protect round two of diamonds?
So I don't know who's the goat here. But if I had to choose, I'm afraid that it would have to be West on that defense. East might have saved the same number of spades as dummy holds, yes, like the one above should have done on the diamond opening lead. But West led the Q of spades, which tends to suggest that he'll take care of that suit, and in any event, when East sluffed his last spade, and West can pretty much figure that if anyone protects the third round of spades, it'll have to be himself, he just might have taken the bull by the horns and sluffed his top diamonds, as lovely as they look.
In any event, I would like to point out that when a partner is being squeezed, or something close to it, a card as low as an 8 or lower might become very valuable as partner discards that suit and guards another. One of my pseudo-squeeze illustrations involves a defender who saved a worthless spade instead of saving a guard to the seven of diamonds. Her partner had been squeezed out of some lovely diamonds as he protected against a heart winner in dummy and the 7 should have been winning the second round of diamonds. Instead, after the A of diamonds had been cashed, the four took the final trick.