Get 'em Out: Trump, trump, trump


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

Declarer ruffed the opening lead in dummy, cashed the A, K of trump, knocked out the A of diamonds and ruffed a club continuation with the J. Now there came a spade to the Ace and one more round of trump and three more rounds of diamonds, the last of these being ruffed by West. Why, why, why?
Declarer finished off making his contract with an overtrick, but since 12 tricks were easily available, he got a below average score of 41%. When I first saw that declarer had a poor score, I thought he was perhaps incautious about knocking out the A of diamonds, for you will note that even on a 3-2 trump break, declarer must knock out the A of diamonds before exhausting dummy of trump. But no, that wasn't the reason for that forfeiting of a second trick to the defense.
It was pure and simple a case of not drawing the last trump when the hand was all set up and he needed only cash out his winners, finishing off trump before thinking of anything else.
This hand actually straddles getting out trump with the need to do one bit of housekeeping before all trump are out. As it happened, declarer did rightly delay trump one round in order to have a club stopper when he knocked out the A of diamonds -- and then lost a valuable trick by failing to draw all enemy trump. Did he perhaps fail to note the fall of the 10 on the 4-1 trump break? I don't know how else to explain it that he would fail to draw West's last trump, thinking that defender held the high trump.
The hand also could have fallen under "Dummy Reversals", but declarer apparently saw that, so I didn't enter it there.
I just picked up another declarer who did just about the same thing (and I did check to see that I hadn't printed out the same declarer twice). Ruff the opening lead, take two rounds of trump, knock out the A of diamonds, take a club lead back with a ruff in dummy, come to the A of spades, take one round of trump -- not two for perhaps the same reason? And here they differed for the first time. The declarer above ran three more rounds of diamonds, getting ruffed at trick 10. This declarer took two more rounds of spades and was ruffed at trick 9. Oh, me.
Well, by golly, here's one more, now played from the opposite side of the table, but played substantially the same way: Opening lead the A of clubs, ruffed in the closed hand, two rounds of trump, knock out the A of diamonds, ruff a club continuation with the J, come to the Ace of spades, exactly one more round of trump also! And like the first declarer, three rounds of diamonds followed, the only difference being that this defender ruffed with the 7 of hearts, while the others ruffed with the 8. Oh me, oh my.