The other day I watched Johnny play a few boards. Nothing spectacular...but Johnny is not that type of player. But he does have foresight. The hand he played to defeat 6H illustrates his ability superbly. ( Other declarers in the room had much easier times against weak and wooden defenders. ) But Mr. Foresight was on lead, and so he naturally kicked off with the king of diamonds from: (void)...K974....KQJ1083....K86.
In dummy he saw the following : J10753...Q52...(void)....AQJ104. Declarer took the first trick by ruffing in dummy. then came the queen of hearts, which was allowed to hold. Over to the ace of hearts, followed up by the jack, which Johnny was obliged to take. Based on the bidding ( and the play ) he knew declarer was also out of diamonds, and certainly held the Ace of spades. But what if declarer was holding 9x of clubs....and was allowed to get in with a diamond ruff to draw the outstanding trump......surely, it would be all over for the defence ( 5H, 5C, Diamond ruff, and1S ). Moreover, exiting with a low club was also futile if it allowed declarer to win with the nine. So what card did Johnny play ?......the King of Clubs of course ! He knew that declarer could not enjoy 5 club winners, unless he had 3 to the 9. So declarer would be forced to return to hand with a spade.....ooops.....slam is one-off.......because declarer did indeed have that 9x doubleton in clubs, in a 4-6-1-2 distribution.
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