Through the Mind of Declarer

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A 10
A 9 8 5
K Q J 8 4
9 8
Q 6 5 3 J 8
J 6 3 2 K 7 4
9 3 2 10 6 5
K 7 A 6 5 4 2
K 9 7 4 2
Q 10
A 7 Contract: 3 no trump
Q J 10 3 Opening lead: 3 of spades

I have the play of two declarers here. One went down a trick, the other made the contract without an overtick, and though the latter had a better score, naturally, in matchpoints it wasn't a whole lot better for a reason which will soon become clear if it isn't already. Declarer let the jack hold the opening lead and took the return of a spade with the ace. He now came to the ace of diamonds, played the king of spades and continued the suit to establish the fifth spade. A heart lead through the ace, declarer's only chance of an entry to the established spade, was taken by East, and now the defense could cash its top clubs to beat the contract.
I thought I might go through the hand as an experienced declarer might look at it. First you count your winners . . . your certain ones, and then the ones that can be developed with certainty, those that can probably be developed, and on down the line. And what we come up with first is 8 top winners (while keeping a small place in the back of our mind for the caveat that we're presuming diamonds won't split worse than 4-2). That means we've only got to establish one more winner for the contract -- and an overtrick or two if possible.
After counting, we'll next look at opportunities and dangers. And I would say the spade suit offers neither. They can't hurt you much in the suit. You have more than they do, and in addition to the top two honors, you've got the 10 and 9. So it's impossible to see how they could snap up three spade winners, and though I can think of a layout where they get two, even that doesn't see altogether probable. While at the opposite end of the listing is that other black suit offering two more winners if you'll just go at 'em. Furthermore, we see that we have only two quick entries to the closed hand, and we're going to need two to exploit the clubs after knocking out the top honors.
Hence I would take the opening lead with the A of spades and lead a club -- quickly. Whichever defender wins, I'm only one club lead away from establishing two clubs and an overtrick with two entries. Not such a bad state of affairs.
If East wins the first club lead and shoots a spade through the king, declarer covers the J and plays a second club. West can win and . . . what? If he cashes his queen of spades, the hand is all over. The defense has three tricks and declarer has 10 several which ways. If he leads a heart, declarer has a tossup. Go up with the ace and cash out his 10 tricks -- to be only 9 if diamonds don't split benignly. Or duck the lead, possibly for an 11th trick if the lead rides to the queen, but also possibly being held to 9 if East has the queen of spades, or a lead to West's queen. We can see from the layout that it wouldn't matter. The defense can take two clubs and a spade or two clubs and a heart, but 10 tricks are secure if declarer hops up on that opening lead and attacks clubs. By such decisions are gains and losses in matchpoints incurred.

The other declarer, playing from the North hand above, was given a gift on the opening lead, which was a club! Now he's only one club lead short of establishing a tenth winner. Yet he wound up with only 9 by this line: A heart return was ducked around to the king and a heart went to the queen. Declarer now had it all for ten tricks with a club lead but instead, cashed out 9 tricks, losing the last two to the jack of hearts and ace of clubs. A simple waste. You don't have to let 'em have that jack of hearts winner. Just lead clubs one more round, and you've got two club winners, two hearts, two spades and five diamonds for eleven, except that you can't have eleven winners if they've got three. But it does mean you don't have to give up any more tricks beyond those three, that you've got everything solid, and that indeed, if a defender decides to hold up one round of clubs with that ace for reasons of his own, and stranger things have happened at the bridge table, you will have eleven winners.
The upshot was that the declarer who went down got a 7.14% MP score while the one who made his contract got 16.67%, a small disparity on a scale of 100 for making the contract vs. going down. But that's the way it is in duplicate: when overtricks are easily picked up, you'll pay a pretty stiff price for not getting them, as this declarer did.