Dee-fense! Dee-fense!

	7 5 4 3 2
	J 10 3
	A Q 9 3
	9
J 10 9 6		K
A K 9 6 4		Q 7 5
8 7		K 10 6 2
A 10		K Q J 7 3
	A Q 8
	8 2
	J 5 4	Vul: N-S
	8 6 5 4 2	Opening lead: 6 of spades

North	East	South	West
Pass	1	Pass	1
Dbl	Pass	1	Dbl
All	pass

When I first looked at this one-level double, which was sticking out like a sore thumb at the top of good boards for N-S, I thought, "Oh, no, you don't want to give those other guys the privilege of naming trump! You want to push your trump suit insofar as is practical. And here you have game with an overtrick in hearts!" But on going over the hand, I began to change my mind. For one thing, it's only two 8-card suits in opposition, which isn't like 10- or 11-carders, where you'd certainly not want to double at such a low level. And then there was that vulnerability, which actually is what makes the hand interesting. At any other vulnerability, that one-level double would simply be a gift to N-S. The upshot being that I had to admit that it wasn't conceding the trump suit to N-S that was at fault. It was the defense. E-W indeed had two chances for a healthy down two, one not so obvious and the second, which I'll get to in a minute, being fairly obvious, I would say.

Now, one-level bids are by and large a lot harder to analyze than slams and near slams, where the suits are fairly solid and the lead doesn't change hands very often. Here only the diamonds have a tenace (you'd hardly count the A Q of spades when the stiff king sits before that holding). But when the lead shifts back and forth, that means that three different people with two or three different suits they might choose every time they get the lead offer a lot more permutations than your usual slam, and one can get fuzzy-brained trying to play out every permutation. All of which is to say that I don't absolutely claim no one can find a flaw in my analysis, but I think this is valid:

The defense can hope to set the contract 2 tricks -- more than their non-vul game, of course -- by leading trump so as to eliminate a heart ruff in the short hand. Declarer captures the king of spades and loses a heart to see what happens. East wins and hits his partner with the ace of clubs, and West leads another trump, knocking out declarer's last honor. Declarer sees that losing another heart isn't going to help, and so finesses a diamond into the hand without trump.

East can now hit his partner with a heart, and West cashes out two rounds of trump, cashes the third round of hearts and continues the suit which declarer ruffs in dummy, the last trump on the hand. Have you been counting? The defense has collected seven tricks (three hearts, two trump and the king of diamonds and the ace of clubs), while declarer has collected three (two trump on leads and a trump in dummy). Here is the hand just before West leads a heart, drawing the last trump on the hand from dummy:

	7
	------
	A 9 3
	------
------		------
6 4		------
8		10 6 2
10		K
	------
	------
	J 5
	8 6

East is not truly squeezed here, as I thought in going over the hand in my mind, for West can protect clubs. But the heart lead would give East far more of a problem than a diamond, which he isn't likely to misplay. A heart lead puts him to a guess: "Does my partner have the jack of diamonds or the 10 of clubs?" Or to put this another way, had declarer the 10 of clubs, East would have been squeezed on that lead. And the squeeze card is the 7 of spades, which West obligingly lets declarer cash with a heart lead -- the same play as though declarer had been allowed to lead the 7. A club lead would also hand over the rest of tricks to declarer, not on a squeeze but because the closed hand has two and there is an entry to the remaining one. But a diamond lead doesn't harm the defense. If declarer goes up and cashes the 7 of spades, East can throw a diamond. Declarer can go to the J of diamonds, but now has no entry back to the 9 and East gets a trick with the K of clubs. But if declarer goes low, East covers the 9 or lets the 8 ride, and now when declarer returns to dummy to cash the 7 of spades, East can discard the K of clubs and be assured of a diamond trick.

However, if the defense does not get off to a trump lead, it seems to me a capable declarer could hold the count to down one and a mighty good score, thusly: Ace of clubs, club continuation ruffed in dummy (as happened in the hand I'm examining). Lose a heart, now the defense gets around to leading trump, but they're a trick too late. Lose another heart, another trump lead, ace of diamonds and ruff a heart. That's a big trick. Declarer now has five tricks (two trump leads, a ruff in each hand and the ace of diamonds), and a club lead ensures a trick. West and dummy at this point have the same number of trump, and West has the top ones, but declarer has the lead, and on a club lead is assured of one more trump trick whether West goes up or not for a respectable down one.

However, as played, declarer and the defense traded mistakes back and forth until they reached the end position below, where declarer had a chance to ensure six tricks for a good board, but didn't take that line, giving West a chance to ensure down two, and West didn't take that line, allowing declarer to make his contract! Let me run through the hand as played:

Opening lead the ace of clubs, clubs continued, ruffed in dummy. This gives delcarer the tempo and he can now start losing hearts. Declarer took one round of trump, which gives the defense the tempo, for they can now lead trump often enough to prevent a heart ruff in the short thand. Declarer then led a diamond to the queen and king. East led a heart to the king, allowing West a chance to lead trump with his sequence, but the defense ran three heart tricks, forcing declarer to ruff in the short hand! Declarer cashed the queen of trump, leading to this end position:

	7 5
	------
	A 9 3
	------
J 10		------
9 6		------
8		10 6 2
------		K Q
	------
	------
	J 5
	8 6 5

There have been three shifts in advantage. On the club continuation at trick 2, the defense gave declarer a chance to go down one for a good board if he'll start losing a couple of hearts. On his lead of a trump, declarer gave the advantage right back, for the defense can prevail with down two by leading trump (if declarer starts losing those two hearts), preventing a heart ruff. But the defense spurned that gift and gave the advantage right back by running 3 hearts, substantially forcing declarer to ruff in the short hand. There are two more shifts in advantage to come, and these I think are not too difficult to see:

Eight tricks have been played at this point. Declarer has won four (two trump leads and a ruff in each hand), while the defense has won four, (two hearts, a diamond and a club). Declarer can ensure a sixth trick by simply cashing his jack of diamonds. No, it doesn't matter a whit if by chance West can ruff. There are two trump out, the top two, both known to be in the same hand. Any ruff of your diamonds means a promotion of dummy's trump. You should be using your strong suit to knock out those trump, not going for your weakest suit as declarer did.

As it happens, West cannot ruff the jack of diamonds, so that's a fifth trick. And now declarer leads a diamond toward the ace, and West is trapped. The best thing he can do is let the ace win for a sixth winner. East will control the fourth round of diamonds, and West will then have the top two trump. Declarer now claims.

Declarer should cash his jack of diamonds, which would have assured two more tricks. The ace and jack of diamonds are either going to win tricks, or they're going to draw West's trump, or one of each. And that's two tricks. But what declarer did at this point was to lead a club! His weak suit. That was a fourth shift in advantage. The defense now can hold declarer to five tricks by simply ducking that lead, sluffing a diamond. Declarer can ruff the club lead, but West is now on claim. He has one more trump than dummy and so can ruff any lead, draw trump and run hearts. But don't go away!

West ruffed high! And now instead of having one more trump than dummy, he has one less, and in fact, he's only going to get one more trick, actually allowing declarer to make his contract when down two was at his fingertips!

West has to see a few simple verities here. One is that when declarer leads a club, there is absolutely no way of preventing declarer from getting a trick with those two small trump. So he's always got a fifth trick. Further, West had a diamond he could discard, nullifying the value of that ace of diamonds. Those two trump left to West were the high trump. You're always getting them. And you want to get something with them . . like the ace of diamonds. West has to duck that club lead, let declarer have that trick he's aways getting. And a two-trick set would fall into his hands.

I don't mean to claim that all the intricacies of this hand should be apparent to the players, of course. A few weren't apparent to me even after looking at the hand for awhile. But I do think the end position should have been grasped . . by each side. Declarer should see that the best line was to knock out West's trump was with his top diamonds. And when he missed that, West should see that he gets nothing with ruffing a club high and so sluff a diamond.