It is nice to bid a pushy slam, with one proviso. You do need to make it or else concede a bundle of imps! So, here’s your opportunity.
South was not holding back on this board. Their hand does conform to the Rule of 29 with respect to opening 2♣︎. It is certainly a hand of great potential. After their partner produced the inevitable negative response, they came to life by bidding their spade suit and then giving preference to hearts.
The partial spade fit encouraged South. South’s leap to 5♦︎ was Exclusion Key Card and 5♠︎ showed one Key Card outside diamonds, obviously the ♥︎A. That was enough for South and they settled for the small slam.
West led ♥︎10. Plan the play.
No ♠︎K, no ♣︎Q and no 4th trump but still a reasonable contract. You cannot always get the perfect dummy!
If the spade finesse worked, you would be pretty close to making. The same would apply with a favourably placed ♣︎Q.
Can you, though, see the difference between playing one black suit as opposed to the other?
It would certainly help for suits including trumps to break relatively normally. For instance, if you took a losing spade finesse before all the trumps were drawn, you would hate to suffer a second round ruff. The same applies if the first round spade finesse worked!
There was though one additional problem which occurred too late to the declarer. Declarer took ♥︎A in dummy. ♠︎10 won the first round of spades but ♠︎J did not win the second round. West completed great defence by giving their partner a ruff to beat the slam.
Yet, even if the spade finesse had worked, twice, declarer could not make use of dummy’s good spades unless the K had been singleton or doubleton in East’s hand. West defended well but South had not taken the best line.
Worse than that was the fact that only two clubs could be discarded on winning spades. South still had a potential club loser which needed to be ruffed successfully in dummy or for Q to drop singleton or doubleton. Not only did declarer have to take 2 spade finesses but they had to play three rounds of clubs before a final trump could be drawn.
Contrast this with playing on clubs at trick 2. Assuming AK stood up (normal breaks), South could ruff a third round with A and if no Q had appeared, could then attempt spade finesses. This line works when there was a 3-3 club break or a doubleton or singleton Q in either hand, around 53% without the extra chances of successful spade finesses when no Q appeared.
However, when the Q appeared on the second or third rounds, South could draw trumps and concede a trick to K, where-ever it was and still make their contract.
It is much better to rely on the good placement of one honour than have to test two suits. Clubs offered a greater opportunity of success and as you can see here was the winning very comfortable line to making the slam.
Richard Solomon
