Extremes Meet


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

On the above hand, two declarers met, as it were, though one made an overtrick, the other an undertrick. They were the only two relating to the grand slam level. One bid 7 clubs, the other was the only one to make 13 tricks on the hand. The first one I looked at was the 6 club bidder with an overtrick, wondering who had goofed and found that no one had. The defense offered no gifts. Declarer simply played the hand very well.
Opening lead was taken with the ace, declarer sluffing a diamond, and then a spade was ruffed. The heart finesse was taken, the J winning, and the A of hearts was cashed. Now came a club to the 10, and a heart was ruffed high, club to the J, ruff a heart, ruff a spade with the closed hand's last trump, cash the A of diamonds, then the Q of hearts, sluffing a diamond and two trump in dummy took the last two tricks.
It was played beautifully. Note that declarer went after the hearts immediately, taking that finesse and cashing out the A. Now he can use the closed hand's trump both to draw that of the opponents and as an entry to ruff out the hearts in dummy. He's not going to make it if he cashes out two rounds of trump and then asks himself, "Now, what do I do?" He could, of course, do so at that point if hearts were 3-3 and he hops on that finesse. But hearts weren't 3-3 and indeed, that's one of the beauties of the way declarer played this hand. He had to take a chance that they weren't 5-1 (he cashed the ace before drawing trump) but could live with 4-2 hearts and did.
Alas, this was an IMP game, and instead of soaring to a 100% score, as he would have in matchpoints, he got a mere pittance over the 6-clubs-making-6 declarers.
The other declarer, playing from the opposite side of the table, ruffed the opening spade lead, came to the A of clubs, ruffed another spade, came to the Q of clubs, ran all his clubs, which did nothing for the hand, cashed his major suit aces, knocked out the K of hearts by leading the J, and then took the last two tricks with the A of diamonds and Q of hearts. Declarer had actually blown his chance of making his contract at trick two! At that point, he was in the wrong hand for taking the heart finesse and had only two trump left in dummy! So he could hardly have taken the heart finesse (using one entry), cashed out the ace, then gotten back to ruff a heart (using up his second entry), then gotten back to ruff another heart (using his last entry, the A of diamonds) and then returned to cash the fifth heart! Indeed, at trick four, when he led dummy's last trump, he couldn't have made his contract even on 3-3 hearts! Novice bridge. Disgusting for someone calling himself an expert.
It was poorly played with no foresight and a curious refusal to take a natural finesse in a grand slam contract! Now, guess which player called himself an expert and which one did not? Oh, you got that one right, didn't you? I just don't see how anyone calling himself an expert, who had indeed with his partner, arrived at the par contract, could decline to take a simple finesse on a 7-card holding where dropping a stiff king (his only hope as he played the hand) was too improbable to entertain.
Incidentally, I only look up rankings when a player has, well, played like a novice, when someone has blown a fairly simple contract. I don't mean to take anything away from the first declarer, but the contract involved only taking a finesse and ruffing out hearts for the 5th heart. Difficult? Difficult to see early? I hardly think so. Yet this is the second time in the past few weeks I've come across this expert, the second lookup coming not from remembering his name but recognized by the wry remark he makes on his stats page.
I might point out that the "expert" held spades in his closed hand and seemed to think he had to take care of that suit. The hand doesn't call for a dummy reversal (from his viewpoint), exactly. But it would have worked better if he'd forgotten about spades and concentrated on avoiding that diamond loser the only way he possibly can. (Okay, the only way aside from a stiff king of hearts, if you wanna get technical.)