Riding to that King
|
 A 10 9 4 |
|
 A K Q 9 6 |
|
 J 10 |
|
 A 3 |
| 5 3 |
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Q J 8 7 6 |
| 3 |
|
J 10 8 7 5 4 |
| Q 9 8 7 |
|
------ |
| K J 9 8 6 5 |
|
4 2 |
|
K 2 |
|
|
2 |
|
|
A K 6 5 4 3 2 |
|
|
Q 10 7 |
Contract: 6 diamonds |
A tough hand. Can it be made against any defence? No, I would hafta say that two spade leads, one on opening lead, one on winning a diamond lead with the Q, would do declarer in. Which is to say that on any other lead, you can and should make your contract. But a lot of different things went wrong -- in both directions.
The first mistake that caught my eye was how many declarers let a spade lead ride to the K. When they knock out the Q of diamonds, they can cash the second honor in dummy and now have no way of re-entering the closed hand. Down one. Had they taken that spade lead in dummy and pushed the Jack through, upon seeing East show out of diamonds, they would now be able to cash the 10 of diamonds in dummy, get to the closed hand on the K and finish drawing trump. I've seen this quite often, that declarers rather lazily, in my opinion, let an opening lead ride to an honor in the closed hand, though it would seem self-evident that they'd want to be in dummy at the end of the first trick to start a trump finesse. One declarer let the lead ride to the K and then led low to the J 10 of diamonds. That's near incomprehensible. Had he won in dummy, and led the jack, he might have gotten a cover and escaped the diamond loser he's giving up right away. We can see that the end of that trick is no worse a situation than leading the jack into the Q. But he couldn't know that distribution, and so the play is puzzling. This one went down, to be sure.
Not all of those who let the spade lead ride were doing so at trick one. One got a heart lead, finessed the J of diamonds in to the Q, and now could make his contract if he'd just taken the spade switch in dummy, cashed the 10 of diamonds, come to the closed hand with K of spades and drawn trump. Not much excuse for that that I can see. He goes to the 10 of diamonds, cashes the A of spades and now has no means of returning to the closed hand.
A few declarers were undone by a club lead, going up. Well, I don't like to harp on plays where I can see what would have worked. Still, I might suggest that declarer on a club lead might consider this: "I'll be okay if that was from a king and I'll be okay if I pick up the queen of diamonds. But I don't think I want to tie myself to the latter alone." Still, I admit I knew where the K was before writing this, and you can judge for yourself whether I make sense or not. And one defender removed all doubt for declarer by leading the K of clubs (at trick 3), for no known reason. Oh, yes, sometimes leading the K will block declarer from dummy, so you give up one trick in that suit to cut him off from winners in another in dummy. But not here.
One strange play came to my attention after I'd gone over how declarers went down and looked to see how they made their contract, and that was a duck of the J of diamonds, first round, by two different Wests. Well, now the contract is a piece of cake. Declarer doesn't have to worry about entries. He cashes the A K of trump and leads the fourth round to the Q, and now can sluff low clubs on heart honors. That's a powerful holding for defending against a little slam, the 9 being just as valuable as the Q (if you got off to a spade lead). Give declarer the 9 of diamonds for a low spot, and it doesn't matter where he wins a spade lead. After finessing the J into the Q, he can now overtake the 10 and draw West's remaining trump.
One declarer played very well, winning the heart lead, knocking out the Q of diamonds, taking the spade shift in dummy, cashing the 10 of diamonds, coming to the closed hand with the K of spades, and running the rest of the tricks. The problem was that he was in 7. So one of the few declarers who made nary a mistake in play got one of the worst scores by virtue of his bidding. And so it goes.
Five made 6 diamonds and a like number made 6 no, one doubled. Here's the skinny on how they pulled home their contract: Two got a defender who ducked the first round of diamonds! One got a club K at trick 3 and faced no choice in spades. A fourth got a heart lead, and then a club shift. Declarer was safe going up, not tested in spades. Only one brought the contract home by playing his spades skillfully. Three in 6 no pulled the contract home by playing their spades right. Perhaps there's a reason in the disparity in that it's obvious that your only entry outside of overtaking the second diamond honor lies in spades, unlike a trump contract. One got a friendly duck on the first round of diamonds, and a fifth wasn't tested with anything difficult in spades.