Can Be Done


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

All kinds of trump and three top side-suit winners. Now what does a guy do for that all-important 10th winner. When you have substantial trump in both hands and no clear path to a contract-fulfilling winner, it'll probably be a pretty good idea to strip as many suits as you can and then throw in a defender with an unavoidable loser and look to see if you can get a lead in a suit you're out of -- as several declarers did. Well, six made the hand while a lop-sided 28 found that they could not. The winning defense is given away by the category. But first I wanna go through the defense at the tables where the declarers pulled home the contract.
Declarer, of course, must lose a spade and ruff two in dummy and cash two rounds of trump to strip the opponents of those suits. He can indeed afford a third round of trump to induce a foolish discard, since he needs only one trump in each hand for a sluff&ruff. Well, here's what happened.
Case 1: Opening lead the J of clubs, taken by declarer in dummy, and now declarer led five rounds of trump, sluffing a club from the closed hand. And the opponents? East had to sluff four cards and chose to sluff a spade, diamond, club and another spade, while West sluffed three cards, to wit, a spade and two diamonds. Those two diamonds did it for the defense, or at least those two diamonds and East play on a diamond from dummy. For he went up with the Q, declarer ducking and noting the J falling on his left.
Had he known he'd be getting the J, he could simply have gone up with the A and then with 10 9, would have established a second diamond winner by knocking out the K with one of those cards. But he did just as well with what he did. East now led his Q of clubs, declarer winning with the A, then losing a spade to West, then losing another spade on the lead of the 10 of clubs (well, he ducked that lead, sluffing a spade, so call it losing a club, if you will). And now on another club lead, declarer struck: he ruffed with dummy's last trump, led a low diamond from dummy and finessed the 9 and then dropped the K with the A.
Case 2: Club J to the K, lead a spade from dummy, East winning, leading the K of diamonds. Ruff a spade, trump lead, ruff another spade, second round of trump and a third round, West sluffing the J of diamonds (!), a strange card, since he still held the 6. Did he think he was unblocking or something (remember, his partner led the K of diamonds at trick 3)? Well, unblocking certainly wasn't the ticket for defense on this hand, and indeed, you'll note that with that discard, declarer now has the very diamond holding I pointed out that declarer might've had on the above Case: i.e., the 10 9 of diamonds with only one higher honor out. And that again was declarer's 10th winner, realized in a different way.
Case 3: Opening lead a heart, followed by a heart lead by declarer and then a spade, East winning. East led a low diamond, declarer ducking to West's J, won the J of clubs switch in the closed hand, ruffed a spade, ducked a diamond lead from dummy, letting East win with the Q, so that's not going to be the key suit this hand. East himself continued diamonds, declarer winning with the A, ruffed a spade, followed by a spade lead, East discarding his last diamond, reasonably enough, West a club, which didn't hurt him, since he started with one more than declarer held in each hand, but . . . but now on the A of trump, West discarded another club, getting down to one club, and so did East! -- as each saved a top spade. Declarer now went to the K of clubs in dummy, dropping the 10 from West, the Q from East, and the 6 of clubs took the game-going trick.
East has to be the goat here. He doesn't even have the high spade! So how can the K of spades be worth anything? Should West have known that if declarer has the K of spades, he can ruff it in dummy? Yes! If declarer has 4 spades and thus only 5 cards in the minors, declarer can ruff three times in dummy, giving him seven trump winners to go with the A of diamonds (played at trick 8) and two club winners (one played at trick 5, the other showing). So West has to figure declarer for no more spades and one more club. So I guess they're both goats!
Case 4: Opening lead a club, declarer loses a spade, another club lead, wiping out declarers stoppers. Ruff a spade, lead a heart, ruff a spade, lead a heart, lead a heart, getting two diamonds from East and one from West! My, my. How can West need four clubs with only three showing in dummy and with his partner kinda hinting that he's not going to be saving diamonds? Anyway, at that point, the contract had already been decided in declarer's favor. Each defender has two diamonds while declarer has 3 in each hand, can bang down the ace and lose a diamond to establish that valuable 10th winner.
Declarer now lost a club to West's 10 and ducked East's Q of diamonds, drawing out the suspense, I guess, and now took the K of diamonds lead from East, cashed his last diamond and then last trump.
Case 5: Cash the A of spades, J of clubs to the A, ruff a spade, lead a heart, ruff a spade, lead the K of hearts, low diamond, Q from East, taken by declarer, low diamond to West's J, diamond to East's K, K of spades by East! Duh sluff & duh ruff. Declarer sluffed a club loser from the closed hand. East had two clubs at the time, and it was the suit his partner had opened the play with the J. Inexcusable.
Case 6: Heart lead, lose a spade, diamond from East, riding to his partner's J, J of clubs, taken by declarer in the closed hand, second round of hearts, ruff a spade in dummy, diamond to the A, East playing the Q, ruff another spade, diamond to East's K, K of spades, another sluff&ruff, declarer sluffing the 7 of clubs from the closed hand, ruffing in dummy for only one club loser.
You will note that if you give some players enough rope, they'll hang themselves. Can declarer make that contract with no defensive error? I confess that after looking at the hand and then letting go of the hand for a few hours, my thought was that it might be too tricky to pay analyzing the hand closely enough to determine that. But when I came back, I saw that this was simply a prime example of keeping the same number of cards in each suit as dummy shows, plain and simple. The defense has the K Q J of diamonds and the Q J 10 of clubs, and if they'd just held onto the same number of cards in each minor suit as dummy shows, they would inevitably prevailed.
Please note that if you lead out six rounds of hearts, sluffing two spades, it's the same as if you ruff the second & third rounds of spades. Or if you ruff two rounds of spades (after losing a round) and then cash four rounds of trump, you have the same six spade winners. You cannot ruff any card in the short holding, of course. But if you ruff in the long holding more often than the difference in length, which is to say, if your ruff three times in the long holding and then lead four rounds of trump, you get seven trump winners.
No, you cannot ruff spades three times in dummy when you have only two spades left after losing a round. With a fourth spade, declarer would have 4-4-3-2 distribution, a doubleton in one of the minors and make the contract. I mentioned above that defenders might have reasoned that declarer wouldn't be likely to hold a fourth spade, which he could've ruffed in dummy, and thus the defenders wouldn't have sluffed a valuable club or diamond to hold onto a useless spade. The two defenders who coughed up a sluff&ruff in effect gave declarer that 4-4-3-2 distribution, allowing a third ruff in the long holding. In each case, declarer sluffed a club, which is to say, he ruffed a club in dummy when fate didn't give him 4 spades & two clubs.