A Very Costly Non-Cover



The failure to cover here cost the defense heavily. East later made a strange play, which doesn't seem to have cost anything, really. But the failure to cover? Well, let me go through the hand.
J 7 5 4
A J 10 9 8 6 5
A 3
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10 8 3 K 2
3 Q 4 2
K 9 8 4 2 J 6 5
A 10 8 6 K 7 4 3 2
A Q 9 6
K 7
Q 10 7
Q J 9 5

The contract was six spades, the defense not having bid anything, while, N-S went a heart from North, a spade from South, 4 spades from North and on to slam. The opening lead was the ace of clubs. Declarer ruffed, of course, and now led the jack of spades, which held. He led another spade, capturing the king, ruffed another club in dummy, came to the king of hearts and cashed the queen of trump, tossing a diamond from dummy, as East pitched his deuce of hearts. Now on a lead to the ace of hearts, he dropped the queen, and could claim. Score 100% as noted above.
East's play of the small heart guard to the queen is as incomprehensible as his inability to cover a jack. True, it didn't matter a whole lot since declarer could have ruffed out the queen and returned to dummy with the ace of diamonds. Still, you don't want to make things easy for the opposition, even if it's a play only a dunderhead could have screwed up on. (Suppose declarer has a stiff king of hearts in the closed hand. Then, clearly he should have cashed the king before ruffing a club and then ruffed a heart. Now he'll be an entry shy of being able to run hearts. Too obvious for it to be possible that declarer missed this? Oh, come on. You don't have to look farther than this hand to see how a big score can be tossed to the opponents through failure to execute a simple play.)
Declarer, of course, has a choice with those cards in spades. Does he play to pick up a doubleton king with East or to smother a doubleton 10 with West. Who can say his play of the jack was foolish. But he did play the jack, and now it would appear that a simple cover would kill the slam. Declarer cashes the queen, hoping against hope to see the 10, and when he doesn't, there isn't much he can do. He certainly can't continue spades, for then a club lead would beat the contract.
Well, let's suppose he plays hearts: king of hearts, low heart, West discarding a diamond (or club). (If he ruffs there, he hands declarer the contract.) Ace of hearts, ruff a heart, West still discarding. (He still would hand over the contract if he ruffed here. Declarer can capture any return, and has enough hearts to sluff diamonds and on the last trick, ruff a diamond in the closed hand.) Now declarer is in the closed hand, the one without all them hearts, and he has two ways of returning to the hearts: he can ruff a club or play to the ace of diamonds, and do you what I see? Remember, declarer ruffed a club on the opening lead and has led trump twice. The upshot is that if he ruffs a club, he has no more club stopper and if he plays to the ace of diamonds, he has no more diamond stopper.
When declarer plays hearts, West now ruffs in and the defense gets a trick in whichever minor suit was unstopped. The score for down one was 82%. For an overtrick, 0%. That's very expensive.
You've really got to cover that honor. And I can only say again and again, this isn't novice stuff that is too obvious to discuss. East calls himself advanced and yet threw away a big score on a fairly simple play.
"Wait a minute, fella! Aren't you arguing from hindsight? Declarer got awfully aggressive when his partner supported spades. Is there any law that sez he can't have 6 or even 7 spades and be ready to skip the finesse with a non-cover? For that matter, why couldn't my partner have a stiff queen, or worse, a stiff ace? That'll really cement our relationship if I bump against his ace, huh?" Well, you got me. No, of course there's no guarantee that the cover will be right. There'll always be a rationale for not covering. Unfortunately, I wouold suggest, you're also going to find a lot of low scores to go with your rationale. Ultimately you've got to keep your eyes peeled note how often (and where) the non-cover works, and how often the cover does.