Surprising

	J 7
	5 4
	A K 9 6 4 3
	Q 10 9
8 6 5 4		K 10 9 2
A 9 6		J 10 7 3
7		J 10 8
J 7 6 5 3		8 4
	A Q 3
	K Q 8 2
	Q 5 2		Contract: 6 NT
	A K 2		Opening lead: various

There are two different ways of playing this hand, that is, if West is clever enough to hold up on the first round of hearts. Declarer has nine tricks in the minors, the ace of spades, with the queen a possible winner, and the certainty of developing one heart winner, possibly two. That's eleven. Now if you attack hearts and the king holds, it becomes substantially a question of whether you want to play East for the ace of hearts or the king of spades. And we shouldn't be surprised if a few get sucked into playing him for the former. It's not a dumb play. Just a wrong guess, like having a two-way finesse for a queen.

And what if one doesn't have such a clever LHO? Or if in other ways is not dependent on that choice in the above paragraph? Then they shouldn't go down. There's just nothing else to decide. You've got your 12 tricks. And the surprising thing was that of the 7 who went down in 6 no (two of them 2 tricks), it was a minority who went down for that reason! The rest just weren't careful. Just didn't count up to 12.

Indeed the declarer in the first hand I looked at got a spade opening lead! The jack was played, covered by the king. I mean, that's eleven top tricks, with a heart to be developed. You don't even need to lead toward your heart honors, for even if the first one holds, you don't * want * to * chance * a * good * contract * for * defensive * stupidity! You can't make 13 tricks anyway by leading toward the queen unless East ducks a second time! Just lay down the king of hearts and . . oh, oh, we've got to test diamonds. You must play the queen first. Why is that?

That's because if East has four diamonds, there's nuttin' you can do about it. But if West does, you're going to take two marked finesses past his J 10 8. Anyway, at that point you're on claim. What did declarer do? Well, the first thing he did was to cash three club tricks. To cash three club tricks! Before knocking out the ace of hearts? Yes, before knocking out the ace of hearts.

One declarer got a heart opening lead, the jack drawing the king. Hm-m-mm. Personally, I would very much doubt that a third hand with the ace would duck a round. There's a long diamond suit showing and that opening lead could have come from a K for all East knew. To me, that'd be sufficient grounds for taking the spade hook, but I won't push that. It's not in the same league with the first. declarer.

Here's one that is in the same league with the first. He didn't get a spade lead and had to chance one line or the other given above. But he chose spades! He took the spade hook. And now he too only had to knock out the ace of hearts. Instead, he cashed all his diamonds, cashed the second round of spades and all his clubs and then hit the heart suit. It's just difficult to understand why they can't give up one trick now to save giving up two later. Just simple counting.

Here's one that didn't take the spade hook. His LHO wasn't so clever as some of the others. He pounced on that first heart lead and indeed, shot a heart back. Fine. You're given a gift. No ambiguity about that 12th trick. Only a spade hook will do it. Oh, you didn't want to trot out a stiff king with West, did you? Actually, this declarer threw spades on the long diamonds. He had thrown the queen of spades the trick before he led to the ace. He threw that card, which carried a 50% chance of being a winner to save the 8 of hearts which can be a winner only on a defensive misplay! I tell you, it's a poor practice to count on a defensive misplay when you have a reasonable line of your own. Of course pounce on defensive gifts. You'll never come in first without gifts. But I'd advise you strongly not to count on them. Your partner has a legitimate right to be displeased if you throw away a perfectly good line and banked on a defensive misplay that didn't come through.

And one more did the exact same thing. His LHO took the first round of hearts and returned a diamond, but the upshot was the same, that declarer sluffed two spades on the diamonds, couldn't take a spade hook, and also threw the loverly queen of spades, which might easily have won a trick and would have, to save the 8 of hearts which can win only if the opponents are kind. And they're not there to be kind to you.

So of the 7 who went down, only two did so on a misguess on the choice given in the first paragraph above and one got an in-between underlead of the ace of hearts and misread that. The other four all found a means to go down when there was no reasonable choice and the contract was theirs for the taking.