Entries
Sometimes you have to scrounge around for entries. Sometimes you have an excess of entries. On those occasions when you have lots of them, you should still consider how you wish to use them.
♠ A J
♥ 10 3 2
♦ A Q J 6 4
♣ 6 5 4
♠ 7
♥ A K Q J 6 4
♦ 5 3
♣ A K 3 2
North opened 1♦ and South responded with an old-fashioned strong jump shift to 2♥. These are not as popular today as they were but they work just fine when they come up. North raised to 3♥ and South bid key card Blackwood and heard that North had two aces. South continued by bidding 5NT and North optimistically bid 7♥. His rational was that he had a good diamond suit that might produce tricks. North was not worried about hearts because South had not asked for the queen and North was not worried about aces because South had bid 5NT, something he was not supposed to do if an ace was missing. Anyway, North needed an excuse for his bidding and he had no trouble finding one. It was not a terrible bid but it did have some wishful thinking in it.
West led the ♠K taken in dummy. South saw that the slam required the diamond finesse but he did not look further to see how the play would go after that. So South drew three rounds of trump, ending in his hand. Now he took the diamond finesse and was quite pleased when it won. South entered his hand with the♣A and took the diamond finesse again. South then realized that he was not entirely home yet. He still needed diamonds to divide 3-3 and they did not. The ♦A revealed that West had four to the king. This meant that South was a trick short. Here is the entire hand.
| ♠ A J | ||
| ♥ 10 3 2 | ||
| ♦ A Q J 6 4 | ||
| ♣ 6 5 4 | ||
| ♠ K Q 4 3 | ♠ 10 9 8 6 5 2 | |
| ♥ 8 7 5 | ♥ 9 | |
| ♦ K 10 9 7 | ♦ 4 2 | |
| ♣ J 4 | ♣ Q 10 9 8 | |
| ♠ 7 | ||
| ♥ A K Q J 6 4 | ||
| ♦ 5 3 | ||
| ♣ A K 3 2 |
Do you see a better line of play?
South erred by blowing out his entries too soon. This is a common error, which is easily avoided if you spend a little time thinking in advance of your play. Here is how the play should have gone. The ♠A wins the first trick and South wins his ♥A at trick two. He sees trumps are 3-1 at worst and is not unhappy with this. A four-zero break would be very inconvenient.
After winning the diamond finesse, declarer returns to his hand with the second round of trumps, noting that West has three of them. Now, instead of drawing the last trump, South finesses again in diamonds. It wins and when East follows suit, South can claim. He ruffs a diamond in his hand and goes to dummy with the ♥10. Trumps are gone which means the diamonds are all good. The ace picks up the king and the ♦6 is 13th trick.
Homework: The play shown is the best line. Oddly, there is another line that is inferior that happens to work too. It is a squeeze against West. Try working out the details. As noted, it is not the best line but it is the kind of thing that someone notes after the session. They produce the hand on a napkin and challenge anyone to make the grand slam after drawing three rounds of trump first.