Counting . . Simple Counting


A Q 9 8
K Q 4 3
K Q 10 4 3
------
J 7 6 5 10 2
J 9 7 6 2
9 7 8 5 2
K 7 6 4 3 2 A Q 10 5
K 4 3
A 10 8 5
A J 6 Ope lead: J of hts, 4 of clbs
J 9 8 Contract: 6 hearts

No one was going down, here. Still, the difference between an overtrick and no overtrick was about 23 points, and that's a significant difference, I would say. I might also add that it tends to be proportionate to the ease in which the overtrick is garnered. If difficult to find or very risky, there won't be that great a difference. But that great a difference here is certainly a sign that it wouldn't have taken a whole lot of acumen to find it. Two declarers here missed the overtrick by moving in the opposite directions, which I found a little interesting. And counting might have spared both the ignominy.
The first one got the J of hearts opening lead and proceeded to draw four rounds of trump and need I say more. He'll pick up four heart winners, five clubs and 3 spades for 12. Had spades split 3-3, he'd have tied those who took a little care on the hand and his careless play would have been obscured. But spades didn't split 3-3 and he got a mediocre board instead of a good one (51.6 vs. 74.2). Now you can count winners or count losers, and you can count from either hand. By counting winners, you come out with 12 as outlined above with routine play. But if you ruff just once (with a spot card), you have five heart winners for 13 tricks. This can also be looked at from the closed hand. You get two sluffs on the diamond differential, which means you'll have a club loser at the end if you draw four rounds of trump on that 4-1 split. But if you ruff one club and then draw trump, you'll only have two clubs to discard and will make 'em all.
The other declarer got a club opening lead, as noted, ruffed it, and would seem to have been in a favored position to now draw trump, run diamonds and claim. You can't get more than 13 any way you slice it. But after ruffing that club, he came to the K of spades and ruffed a second club! This in itself didn't kill him and only meant that his fifth diamond would simply go to waste. But it didn't augur well, no indeedy. For it looks as though he didn't count up to 13 winners.
After ruffing the second club, he cashed the K, Q of hearts, came to the A of diamonds, cashed the A of hearts . . . and went to the J of diamonds . . there's still time if he'll just cash the last trump (throwing a spade) . . but now he went to the 10 of diamonds, and he would have seemed to have blown his chance . . . except that he still has a chance. He only needs to cash one round of spades (East had thus far followed to every lead and it wouldn't be too far-fetched to see East with two spades on a 4-2 split) and then hit diamonds! If East ruffs, he is overruffed and declarer has access to dummy, not now needing all 5 diamond winners. If East doesn't ruff, declarer sluffs a club and hits the 5th diamond and the same situation holds: declarer overruffs if East ruffs and sluffs a spade if he doesn't. And in that case? Well, that was trick 12 and declarer gets that 9 of hearts after all.
These last few plays are not so obvious as simply counting to 13 after the club ruff (5 heart winners, 5 diamonds and 3 spades) and I only mention that declarer still had a chance. But as mentioned, his second ruff of a club didn't augur well, and one who can't perform the simple task of counting up to 13 winners here can hardly be expected to find plays that require visualization.