A Chance Missed

In the Weymouth handicap teams, we scraped home by a fraction of a per cent, though things would have been more comfortable if we had been on the right side of this interesting slam hand

	♠ A K 6 ♥ Q 10 ♦ A Q 3 ♣ A K 9 7 3
	♠ 4 3 ♥ A J 8 7 4 3 ♦ K 7 4 2 ♣ 2

South	West	North	East
2♥	p	2NT	p
3♥	p	5♥	p
6♥	p	p	p

For once I was quite pleased with our auction. 2NT was an enquiry and 3♥ showed upper range (8-9 HCP), but without 2 of the top 3 honours in hearts. 5♥ now showed controls in all the outside suits and asked partner to bid on with good trumps.

West led a spade, and declarer won in dummy and ran the queen of trumps, West discarding a spade. Declarer now played the ten of trumps, and again East defended accurately by refusing to cover. What had seemed to be a laydown contract was now quite awkward, as declarer needs to bring off a trump coup against East.

I think the best line is to cash the ace and king of diamonds, king of spades and ruff a spade, then play two top clubs. If all this has passed off peacefully the position is now

	♠ ♥ ♦ Q ♣ 9 7 3
immaterial		♠ ? ♥ K 9 6 ♦ ? ♣ ?
	♠ ♥ A J 8 ♦ 2 ♣

East is down to 3 trumps and one other card, but it doesn't matter what it is. Declarer leads a club from dummy and ruffs in hand, then exits with a diamond to endplay East. If East ruffs in the diagrammed position, declarer overruffs and plays a diamond, still losing just one trump trick.

That line of play succeeds as long as East does not have a singleton or void in a side suit. If East started with a 2-5-4-2 distribution he can discard a club on the third spade and ruff the second round of clubs. No matter, declarer can overruff, cash the queen of diamonds and lead another club to make two more tricks with the A J of trumps.

At the table East held a 2-5-2-4 shape and declarer erred by playing a third diamond, allowing East to ruff while he still had an exit card in clubs.