How Can Getting an OVERTRICK be Bad?

This post talks about counting losers in a trump contract. If you want some practice on doing that please read this post first:
Counting Losers

The reason why we count losers in a trump contract is to figure out whether or not we will make the contract! If we have 4 losers but are in a 4♠ contract we have one too many losers. We have to figure out how to avoid losing one of those losers.

There are several simple ways to get rid of losers. This post talks about throwing some of our losers away on winners.

Contract:4♥ Opening lead:3♦
Dummy:
♠QJT3
♥Q942
♦AKT8
♣8

Declarer:
♠K52
♥AKJ5
♦QJ952
♣4

First let's count losers. Normally one counts the losers in the hand with the longest trump. That would be either hand since they both have four trump. When this happens I take the hand that has the longest suit outside the trump suit. In this case I will count the losers in Declarer's hand since Declarer has that nice ♦ suit.

How many losers does Declarer have in each of the suits?



There are TWO losers in Declarer's hand. Declarer should have no problem making this contract.

How will Declarer do this?

Since I was Declarer I won the ♦ lead. This ♦ lead looked suspiciously like a singleton so I took out all the Opponents trump. (They split 3-2 by the way. One Opponent had three of them and the other Opponent had two.) Then I played a ♠ to knock out the Opponents A♠. I even remember to play HIGH card from the SHORT SIDE. This set up all my ♠ tricks. When the Opponents were in they also won their A♣ but that was fine. I still make an OVERTRICK in my contract! So I was VERY happy....

UNTIL I looked at my score. My Partner and I got 0% for this result!

How can bidding a game and making an overtrick be so bad?!

Well I checked the results and EVERYONE else took 12 tricks.

Hmmmmm. How do you suppose everyone took 12 tricks? Think about that and I will let you know in the next post.