This was an early deal
Barrie's 4♦ was a bit aggressive, but I would still have bid 4♥ if he had made a responsive double over 3♦.
I ruffed the diamond lead and then played to set up clubs; ace of clubs, club ruff, return to hand with a spade, club ruff. The 3-3 break was good news but when I played a second round of spades East ruffed and forced me with a low diamond. She could now be counted for a 1453 shape. I ruffed the diamond and played a winning club which collected three trumps; six, queen and king. East played another diamond which I ruffed and I was now down to a single trump in each hand while East still held the jack and ten. So I played another winning club discarding dummy's last diamond. East ruffed and exited with a diamond on which I ditched the king of spades while ruffing in dummy. A winning spade forced East to ruff with her last trump but I could overruff with the ace and win the last trick with a club. You can follow the play by clicking on 'Next'.
It was a really neat hand, extracting all of the opponents' trumps without playing a single round. Subsequent analysis with Deep Finesse showed that drawing even one round of trumps would have been fatal. I could also have made the contract by playing a spade instead of a club at trick 8, although the ending would have not been so elegant.
The play at the other table was a comedy of errors. Senior and Hackett had a bidding mix up and finished in 4♠. East led a top diamond which declarer ruffed to play ace and another heart. West ruffed this which was not necessarily fatal but the switch to the queen of diamonds allowed declarer to establish a diamond trick and make the contract.
Neither team distinguished themselves on this slam deal but we lost a big swing. This was the auction at our table
At our table (playing Acol style) Barrie's 4♥ locked us into the wrong trump suit. To be fair to the Rev, I gave his hand to a couple of other decent players and they both suggested 4♥ or a 4♣ splinter. I think that it is better to rebid 3♠ over 4♥. If partner bids 3NT you can always revert to 4♥. The spade grand is a reasonable proposition, making if hearts are 3-2 and spades not 4-0, with some extra chances if spades are 2-2. I make it about 65%.
Six hearts by South is not a great contract, but after West led a club it only needed a 3-2 trump break. No such luck, and I ended down three.
At the other table Hackett and Senior were playing 2-over-1 game forcing, so East was able to rebid 2♠ and there was no danger of playing in hearts, but for some reason they stopped in five spades. Their reward for missing a 98% slam (or 100% if you managed to find 6NT) was a gain of 14 imp. Sometime life just aint fair.
This hand was my biggest regret
My 3♣ was supposed to be weak, although anything goes opposite a passed partner. Barrie led a club to the king and ace. I cashed another club and started thinking. Too late. Eventually I switched to a trump which did not trouble declarer. What I needed to do was take two clubs and switch to the two of spades in tempo. If declarer reads that as a singleton he would go up with the ace and try to draw trumps - down two. Though he might wonder why North had not opened a weak two with K J to six spades. We will never know. At the other table Norman Selway played the same defence, so it was a flat board but a missed opportunity.
