Oh That Club Suit


K J 10 9
K Q 10
Q J
A K 10 4
3 6 5 4 2
9 8 6 A 7 4 3
K 10 6 4 2 9 8 7 5
Q 9 5 2 7
A Q 8 7
J 5 2 Vul: None
A 3 Contract: 6 no trump, 6 spades
J 8 6 3 Opening lead: 6 of diamonds

My focus, in an earlier discussion of the hand, was on how declarer handled the club suit. But when I came across a case where the handling could only be described as "abominable" and yet declarer came out smelling like a rose, and given that the beating of a slam was at issue, I thought the hand would merit a place here: save the same number as dummy (by and large). At first I thought the error was that West failed to cover the J of clubs, which indeed, he did decline to do. But at that point West held only 3 clubs, while declarer had 4 in each hand, and it didn't matter whether he covered or not. West had sluffed a club earlier, though dummy showed four and he had four and had scads of diamonds he could have spared.
Look at that club suit. It would seem to be the only suit with anything tricky about it. [Actually, the hearts need care also, but later on that.] As such, it proved to be the defense's undoing in one case, and cost a few declarers a second undertrick in other cases. First, can you pick up the whole club suit? In either spades or no trump? On any opening lead? How many entries do you need? Lemme start with the declarer who made his six spade contract.
Opening lead was as given above, and of course, that's necessary (missing the ace of hearts) for six to be made. But something else was necessary. Let me go through it and you'll see where the sides traded mistakes (after the opening lead). The Q of diamonds held at trick one, of course, declarer took three spade leads, then a club to the ace, then the jack of spades finished off that suit. The J of spades? Wouldn't anyone want to end trump in the closed hand so as to be able to attack the only (remaining) finessing position on the hand? K of hearts went to the ace, diamond to the A, heart to the queen and then back to the jack. Yikes! Chewing up all entries as if they were cotton candy of no substance? J of clubs, uncovered and pushed through. Making 6. Oh! Well, now. He made it. But only through the carelessness of West. Declarer should not cash his established heart winners after East takes the K and shoots a diamond back, because if West had covered the J of clubs, declarer could then not pick up the suit, not for lack of the right cards, for he'd have 8 6 opposite 10 4 and a marked finesse against the 9, but for lack of a re-entry, which he could have had in the J of hearts.
So why wasn't he defeated? Not because West failed to cover, exactly, but because he'd sluffed a club on a heart lead! (He'd earlier sluffed a heart on a spade lead.) So at the play of the J of clubs, it didn't matter what West did. Declarer now had what was just as good as a 3-2 split. And that's how the sides traded mistakes. Is it fair that declarer played the hand badly and yet came out with a made slam? Guess so. West should have kept the same number of clubs as dummy was showing. Then he could have and should have covered the jack to advantage -- to a great advantage, since his 9 couldn't be picked up [i.e, because declarer had no re-entry, the J of hearts having been cashed] and he'd have defeated a slam contract. But with only two clubs left when dummy showed K 10 4, it didn't matter whether he covered or not. So declarer took an unnecessary heart lead to the Q and back to the J, leaving himself with no re-entry if the J was covered, but at the same time getting a costly discard by West! That put him back where he was before the two heart leads, which was holding the ability to pick up the clubs and make his contract! What was West saving diamonds for? Declarer had shown no inclination to ruff the third round of diamonds though he held every spade down to the 7. Shouldn't have been a made contract. Sometimes you've just gotta ascribe a certain amount of intelligence to opponents.
Now, can declarer effect the necessary entries to pick up the club suit even with the sharpest of West's? Yes, it seems he could. A no trump contract is a little safer here, since declarer can go after clubs right away, but ultimately, there isn't a whole lot of difference. With no ruffing power, the hand plays like no trump anyway. Further, while the no trumper has only two spade leads to the closed hand, the spader has the same two entries, with the proviso that he use only the first and the fourth rounds of spades to lead clubs. You can take the first round of clubs with the A. But note that if you (eventually) come back and finesse the 10, it's all over. West will hold the Q 9 tenace over the J and get a club trick. The finessing round must be initiated with the J.
But if declarer husbands his entries, he'll have enough. Win the opening lead with the Q of diamonds. Come to the A of spades and lead the J of clubs. West must cover or the hand is all but over. Draw three more rounds of trump and cash the top club, in case you have a 3-2 split. Knock out the A of hearts before you lose your diamond stopper, abandoning the suit if East ducks the first two rounds. That's all the heart winners you're getting, anyway. East can inhibit a heart re-entry by capturing the 10, regardless of what round it's played on, or he can win a top heart and knock out the diamond entry. But he can't do both. Come to the A of diamonds and now you have a marked finesse against the 9 of clubs with 8 6 opposite 10 4. It's of no consequence to you whether the 8 is covered or not.
It would appear that declarer could afford to cash one top club before leading out all trump and playing the J of clubs. If covered, declarer knocks out the A of hearts or, as above, abandons the suit if the K Q hold, and uses his A of diamonds to take a marked finesse in clubs.
A simple hand? Obviously not. Declarer must be very careful. And yet, if you break it down, I think you'll find nothing really all that complicated or esoteric. Surely after winning the opening lead you'll wanna draw trump. Oops! A four-one split. Well, you've gotta get trump out. As for clubs, the lead of the J can do you no harm on any 3-2 split. And as for a 4-1 split, well, you've got to be better off if you start with the J and see what happens. Actually, come to think of it, you could start with the 10 of clubs, first round (after one round of trump) and then with the J after the fourth round. West must cover, but you'd still have that same 8 6 marked finesse against the 9. One line that won't work, however, is to cash a top honor and then finesse the 10. That would give West the Q 9 tenace over the J and a certain club trick. [oh, yes, mentioned above] So just about any way you slice it, the lead of the J has to be better than finessing the 10 before the J is played. And as for that split, well, a declarer might figure, if spades are 4-1, surely clubs might be.
Here's a declarer down two in 6 spades: Opening lead, played from the North hand, the singleton club to the ace. [?? I have no idea why I worded the play that way, as if playing the A were routine. Obviously declarer would have no reason to play the ace unless West played the Q, and if West played the queen on any card but the J from dummy the club suit is established. So I hafta presume that the trick went 7, J, Q, A. But I would normally make such a sequence clear.] Since declarer didn't get that diamond gift, he obviously cannot make the hand. But down two? Declarer should see at a glance that only the clubs need attention (and care for entries). So he should have started with a lead to the A of spades and whanged away at clubs. Had he started with the J of clubs -- or cashed the A and then gotten to the hand where he could lead the jack -- he should wind up only down one. But to continue and see why this declarer went down two. [This sentence is obviously inconsistent with the earlier one in brackets. Well, I'll let it go. The next paragraph indicates that this declarer hit a second round of clubs before trump were out. Beware the suit the opponents choose to lead, I have often warned readers.]
There was then a shift to a diamond, dummy going low (played from the North hand, remember) and declarer was down one. That couldn't have been helped. But the second undertrick? Oh, I see. He took a second round of clubs before exhausting the opponents of spades. You just can't do that. The mirror distribution makes the hand better suited to no trump than spades, but you can't know about that distribution during the bidding, and declarer, seeing the 4-1 spade split, must finish drawing trump. If the club hook is off, he's going for down a bundle, but he has to play as if that much will work right.
Here's another down two, this one in no trump, where the spade distribution shouldn't hurt: Also played from the North hand, now a diamond opening lead, ducked, gave declarer an inkling that he's not going to make, particularly when a heart was shot back to the ace. (Declarer would have been far worse off with a diamond return! He then would have no stopper in that suit for control when he knocks out the A of hearts!) But down two? Diamond to the ace at trick 3 (a bit late), club to the A at trick four, four rounds of spades, ending in the right hand (opposite the K of clubs), heart to the queen! Why a heart to the queen? Just a wasted entry. He must hit the clubs then. They can be led (productively) only from one hand, whereas it doesn't matter what hand you lead hearts from. And that was his undoing. Now he has to use the J of hearts for a re-entry to the hand he wants to be in, a re-entry he sorely could have used a few tricks later.
J of clubs covered! Bravo West. The 10 of clubs took trick 12, and now came the 4 of clubs to the 9. With a marked finesse in clubs, declarer couldn't get to the right hand. Down two.
I said first that you must start the clubs with the J, and then that you can live starting with a finesse of the 10. (One thing you can't do is cash a top club first and then finesse the 10.) Anyway, I got to thinking that a stiff Q with West covering the J, first round, would establish a thrice-guarded 9 with East. There leading low to the A K 10, first round, would pick up the whole suit.
Please note that if you exchange the 5 for the 7 with West, then there's no escaping a club loser. West merely covers any club from the closed as cheaply as possible. I often marvel at this delicate interweaving of the cards all the way down to the 7 or lower, maybe. But I mention this also to take a whack at those given to the quickie analysis, those who'll tell you after the hand what they could have done in 3 clubs or the opponents in 4 hearts. You can't analyze hands that quickly with any assurance of knowing what you're talking about, though of course, if you do it often enough, you're bound to right some of the time.