[smerriman]

johnu, on 2024-April-23, 17:17, said:

Even after cashing an extra spade at trick 2, it's still hard to see going down in 5♦.

Perhaps a combination of crossing back to hand in the wrong suit and getting overruffed, along with not spotting that East's red card at trick 1 wasn't a trump, and not drawing the last trump later.

[akwoo]

For those of you surprised by the (lack of) capabilities of beginners, I have a short story for you.

When my parents first retired, Dad thought bridge would be a good retirement activity for them. I was drafted in to teach.

Since I think it's a good idea, and because we didn't have a fourth, I started with the play. I dealt four hands, looked at the cards, determined a contract, explained how the play goes, and we started.

A few tricks in, Mom said "You mean I have to remember what high cards have been played?" and that was the end of that idea.

Many beginners are only a little better than my Mom.

[johnu]

smerriman, on 2024-April-23, 17:41, said:

Perhaps a combination of crossing back to hand in the wrong suit and getting overruffed, along with not spotting that East's red card at trick 1 wasn't a trump, and not drawing the last trump later.

You can afford to have one overruff since that's actually a natural trump trick on normal trump play. You can't afford to lose to ♦A and also lose 2 other diamond tricks. Of course, you could pull the wrong card and lose a trick in a side suit.

[smerriman]

I know, thus the reason I listed two things and said a combination of both

[AL78]

johnu, on 2024-April-24, 05:41, said:

You can afford to have one overruff since that's actually a natural trump trick on normal trump play. You can't afford to lose to ♦A and also lose 2 other diamond tricks. Of course, you could pull the wrong card and lose a trick in a side suit.

I only saw the first few tricks of the play but she started by discarding two hearts on the spade honors (the lead giving her a second spade trick), cashed the ♥A, cashed ♣AK, the queen dropping on the left, then ruffed a club low, overruffed. I didn't see the rest but she said something about having miscounted or something like that, but I can only imagine she played a low diamond at some point and lost to the ten as well, which translates into West making three trump tricks from ATxx.