A Gift, a Dummy Reversal and a Look at the Odds
|
 K J 9 |
|
 A K Q 5 4 |
|
 ------ |
|
 A Q 8 5 2 |
| Q 2 | |
7 4 3 |
| 8 7 | |
J 6 3 2 |
|
| A 7 5 4 2 | |
K J 8 |
| 10 9 6 3 | |
K 7 4 |
|
A 10 8 6 5 |
|
|
10 9 |
|
|
Q 10 9 6 3 |
| Contract: 6 spades |
|
J |
| Opening lead: 9 of clubs |
Declarer ducked the opening lead around to the K and then got a gift that should have made the rest of the hand rather easy. That was a shift to spades by East, West going up with the Q, eliminating the need to guess that card right. Indeed, the club lead itself is rather benign, for the A of diamonds would have cut dummy down to fewer trump than East holds. That means you can't be in dummy with all trump out unless you've got an entry in a side suit, and you can't have an entry in a side suit if you're ruffing out your side suits in the closed hand! So good-bye dummy reversal and hello much more difficult hand. Anyway, declarer took a second round of trump, which was fine, and then went to the wrong suit, which was hearts.
There are two reasons why declarer must ruff a club first. One is that in clubs, somebody figures to have either the 10 or the 9 in the long holding (though it is possible that East started with K 10 9), while hearts could split 3-3. Hmm-mmm, come to think of it, since each suit could possibly do without the ruff, and I'm going to advocate ruffing the third round of hearts anyway, I guess those two possibilities wash out. That leaves the second reason, however, which is that you can ruff a club and get back in hearts, but you can't ruff the third round of hearts and get back in clubs. So where declarer went after his hearts here and established that suit, eventually losing the setting trick to the 10 of clubs, he could have made his contract by starting with clubs.
Ruff a club high, not because you fear an overruff, but because you need to keep a card lower than the 9, back in hearts, take a second round, ruff a heart high, lead a trump and when the clubs split benignly (you already know hearts are all right), you bring the contract home with a good dummy.