Counting Your Tricks, Part 1

None Vul
IMPs
Dealer: South
Lead: J

	seawind A 8 6 5 6 K 10 8 J 10 9 8 4
Maestro K A Q J 4 7 6 3 Q 7 6 3 2		ahmed1 Q 9 4 2 K 8 5 A Q J 9 2 A
	agamawi J 10 7 3 10 9 7 3 2 5 4 K 5

Today Gee, sitting West, is declaring 3NT after a normal auction and receives the normal lead of the CJ. Let’s do the novice thing and count our tricks. Four hearts, one club, nice looking diamond suit in dummy makes nine unless South has four or more including the K and the 10. Five clubs to the Q in hand, they’re not gonna run clubs out on you. So the novice might play DA and a D honor, which wins between 80 and 90% of the time. The novice might even be right. But Gee is no novice. At trick 2 he leads a low spade off the board! North takes the ace and returns the S8, confirming the old adage, “Both sides lead same suit, one side crazy.” Gee wins the Q, and now the defense has three tricks established and one in. It’s still not too late to make by finessing twice in diamonds, but Gee now cashes four hearts and takes one diamond finesse. It holds, but he’s squandered his entry to repeat the finesse, and the DK fails to drop when he cashes the A. Down one. Some guys just have no luck.