Twists & Turns
|
 A 9 4 2 |
|
 K 5 |
|  A 8 6 3 |
|  Q 6 3 |
| Q 8 6 |
|
5 |
| 8 4 3 2 | |
Q J 10 9 |
|
| 5 4 |
| K 10 9 7 |
| J 10 8 7 | |
A 9 5 4 |
|
K J 10 7 3 |
|
|
A 7 6 |
|
|
Q J 2 |
| Contract: 4 spades |
|
K 2 |
| Opening lead: J of clubs |
Declarer always has his contract, and with a two-way finesse for that trump Q, I'm hardly going to critique any declarer for guessing wrong. But there were some serious matchpoints at issue here and though declarer has some control over how many tricks he picks up, it was mostly a matter of defensive play that decided the outcome. Four spades making four brought 28%, plus five 72% and plus 6, 92%.
There was a variety of ways the defense coughed up a trick (with a couple of ambiguous situations) and I had intended to enter this under a "Catch-All" category and found I hadn't initiated it yet. In any event the most common error, a rather glaring error, was to pitch a diamond on the second round of trump, when East can see four diamonds in dummy and that he has some pretty good spot cards in the suit. And indeed, there's a further wrinkle here, in that East can afford to pitch a diamond, provided he cashes his A of clubs. For the there's no way the defense can get more than one club and one diamond in the side suits. But if he hadn't sluffed the diamond, East wouldn't have needed to be in a hurry to cash the A of clubs.
Eight declarers were plus 5 and 3 were plus 6. Well, lemme run through some play.
Case one: Opening club lead, ducked by East, properly so, even though we can see that it wouldn't hurt to go up, since declarer can't discard enough diamonds to avoid a diamond loser. Still, ducking was proper and that wasn't the cause of allowing an 11th trick. Declarer immediately went to the A of spades, so he's gotta lose a trump trick, coming back with a trump to the K, now a heart to the K and a low diamond to the Q! Whoa! Declarer would now seem able to cash his K of clubs, get to dummy with a heart ruff and sluff a diamond on the Q of clubs, thereby avoiding a diamond loser. Except that that isn't what happened!
For a kindly declarer gave East another chance! He returned to dummy with a third-round heart ruff and again led a low diamond from dummy and East again ducked when he had an opportunity to go up, cash the A of clubs and assure the defense of 3 tricks.
Case 2: Opening lead ducked, spade to the A -- ah, so declarer has a trump loser to go, not to mention the minors, back to the K of spades, East sluffing the 7 of diamonds. The seven of diamonds He can see four diamonds in dummy and only three clubs. So why cut down to one less diamond, retaining one more club? ? ? Of course we can see that that isn't what does the defense in, exactly, since East could get the lead in diamonds with only 2. But . . .
Declarer ran two hearts, then finessed the Q of diamonds into the K, and here is the cruncher: declarer must cash his A of clubs now or he's not going to get it, nor did he. Should he be able to see that? Well, I'll leave that up to you, but with only two diamonds to dummy's three and with declarer having ruffing potential in hearts, does East really think he can sit back and capture two club tricks?
Case 3: Here's a switch: Club ducked to the K, spade to the A and back, diamond finesse into the K. East could cash the A of clubs for a third trick, but he hadn't sluffed a diamond and that's not what went wrong. East returned a heart to declarer's K, low diamond from dummy to the J, which is all right, and now a low diamond from the closed hand -- ruffed by West! Whoa! Ruffed by West with the high trump, capturing the . . . capturing the mighty 8 of diamonds? ? ? ?
Not a good idea. Just as you wanna get something with your Aces and Kings, so do you wanna get something, get what's otherwise a winner for declarer, with the high trump. But wait! Couldn't West then return to the suit he began the play with, lead a club and pick up the only winner available? Yes, of course. In another irony, West "wastes" his high trump on a useless diamond his partner could've captured, but had he led a club, the defense could've picked up its third winner, making the A of diamonds totally useless anyway. But it was that combination getting nothing with his high trump and not cashing out the club trick that cost the defense a pretty penny. West shifted to a heart, declarer ruffed the third round of hearts and now cashed the A of diamonds, sluffing a club! No club losers on that hand.
Case 4: Third hand goes up on the opening club lead. It doesn't cost -- here, though the play is going to cost valuable tricks on other hands. Here, however, declarer, cashing the K & Q of clubs separately, can only sluff the third round of hearts, which he can ruff, or the third round of diamonds, which is a winner anyway, after a finesse. No, it had to be something else that cost.
East returned a club at trick 2. Declarer took three rounds of hearts, ruffing the third and cashed the Q of clubs, sluffing a diamond, then came to the K of spades and led the J -- covered! -- finished drawing trump and eventually surrendered a diamond to East. Unlike the previous cases, one cannot state categorically that that cover cost a trick, since we don't know what declarer would've done without the cover. But West's cover was certainly ill-advised.
If declarer showed 5 spades on his opening bid, then East can have no more. Even if declarer had only four spades for his bid, a response to a one diamond opening, East can have only two, and the cover with the Q cannot do anything for the defense, for East won't have any spades at the end of the trick, and if declarer doesn't have the 10, then it gets smothered, and the 9 is high.
Well, three declarers actually wound up plus 6! For a 92% board! So let's see how they did that.
Case 1: Club ducked to the K, declarer now guessing the spades right, came to the a of hearts and took the diamond hook. If declarer gets the spades right, the defense cannot pick up more than two tricks, and when declarer took a losing finess in diamonds, East could've cashed his A of clubs -- but didn't. Should he have known to do so? At the risk of being accused of hindsight, I've gotta say, well, yes. East knows there are no heart winners to be had. The Q of diamonds finesse into the K suggests that declarer has the J there (even if we occasionally come across a declarer who leads the unsupported Q when he should be leading toward it).
But wait. Why couldn't declarer have a doubleton Q J of diamonds and thus 3 clubs? No, that wouldn't matter, for East could cash the A of clubs, establishing dummy's Q, or watch declarer unblock the J of diamonds, ruff a heart in dummy and cash the A of diamonds, sluffing a club, and East still gets only one club trick. Well,suppose declarer has four clubs, two hearts and 2 diamonds. Then declarer could at best sluff one club on the diamond Ace (after cashing the J), which means he'd hafta come through the Q to East's tenace position, allowing 2 clubs for the defense.
Hm-mmm. I'll leave it up to you, but East has to see a very specific situation for cashing the A of clubs to be wrong. Well, one more plus 6:
Case 2: This one had me buffaloed for awhile, since the record ends after the lead to trick 11, and I had to work out what cards the three key hands had (West was no longer a player). I finally decided the hand looked like this when declarer claimed: