Overtricks?

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

A fairly easy hand that anyone above the level of novice should bring home. Quick! Do you want to sluff clubs or spades on the diamonds? Oh, I was just kidding. You don't have to be that quick. But you should see the marked difference between the two suits. For the answer has to be SPADES. You can ruff a club in dummy for a 12th trick, but you can't ruff a spade and will be at the mercy of where the king and jack of spades lie if you sluff two clubs. Since you have the top 6 hearts with only four out, you can afford the ruff and the overtaking of an honor if circumstances call for that.

On the king of clubs opening lead, you win and lose a club right away. On a heart opening lead, you win, cash the ace of clubs and lose a club. If the defense shoots another heart through, well, you only want one ruff, and as a matter of fact, the 2-2 heart split would put you on claim at that point. The people who fixated on throwing two clubs on the diamonds didn't fare so well, as you might have surmised.

This is one of those hands where substandard play would have been masked had the king of spades been onsides. Indeed, had the king of spades been stiff on declarer's right, he might have then finessed the 10 of spades for all the marbles. Yeah, right. You'd do well to play for your contract, especially when you're in a fine slam contract that you can bring home.

Only two in slam followed that losing line. Not many. But wait! Of those in game, six were making only 11 tricks for an 18% matchpoint score, while those making 12 were getting 49%. A little below average, of course, because they didn't bid the slam, but a significantly higher score for just that second overtrick, higher, I admit, than I would have supposed. There was in fact a greater difference between game bidders making 11 tricks and making 12 than there was between making 11 tricks and going down for a negative score! So sloppy play will come home to haunt you even when you pick up an overtrick when another is available.

Here's a line taken where careless play was masked by a lucky break. Opening lead K of clubs, two rounds of trump now being taken. Whoa! What if trump had split 3-1? You have to lose a club to ruff one and would give the defense a chance to lead a third round of trump, inhibiting that ruff. Where's that 12th trick coming from, huh? Careless. Lack of foresight. But there's one thing we know about a lack of foresight and looking to see where your winners are coming from: sometimes, and not too rarely, this is covered up by lucky breaks, such as the 2-2 hearts above, and sometimes they come back to haunt you and a simple trick that you carelessly overlook brings your score way down. Way, way down. But this declarer wasn't having any of that luck business. He now went to his diamonds and sluffed two clubs! As has happened several times lately, a careless play that doesn't cost anything because the cards mask the error is followed up by a careless, senseless play that does cost a lot. Making 5.

[Actually, that declarer could still have made his contract after sluffing clubs: ruff dummy's club, lead the Q (or 10) of spades and duck the cover. West would be thrown in and would either have to allow a sluff-and-ruff, meaning you could (substantially) ruff a spade in dummy, or lead from his other honor. But a declarer who can read the cards that well wouldn't be likely to be in that spot anyway.]

Just about all declarers who were going to sluff clubs on the diamonds took two rounds of trump, which, of course, they might as well do if they're not going for a ruff. One took an even more inferior line of leading a spade to the queen, taken by the king, and then, winning the club return and cashing the ace of spades, he sluffed all dummy's spades on a run of the hearts, leaving A K Q 10 of diamonds in dummy for all to see. Actually, had the jack of spades lain with the jack of diamonds, declarer would have had a squeeze, and perhaps that was what he was looking for. He would have been looking at the 10 of spades, a diamond and two low clubs opposite that diamond holding. A defender, with 4 cards left, couldn't hold four diamonds and the J of spades. Well, perhaps it's not such inferior line, come to think of it, once he'd lost the queen of spades to the king. In fact, it's a downright superior line at that point, for it works if the J of spades falls doubleton, and it works if the J lies with the other J as mentioned.

But there's no line comparable to the simple ruff of a club, after losing a round, for a 12th winner.