| West | North | East | South |
| 1♣ | |||
| 2♠ | 3♥ | Pass | 4♦ |
| Pass | 5♣ | Pass | 6♣ |
| All Pass |
In a team match, you find yourself in a club slam after West interferes with a weak jump overcall of your 1♣ opener. West begins with the ♠Q. How are you going to manage 12 tricks with these cards?
Solution
At the first table, declarer, also in 6♣, played without apparent thought after West led the ♠Q. He took the first trick in dummy with the ace, drew trumps and cashed the ♦A.
He had to lose two diamond tricks and his contract.
The second declarer was more circumspect. He saw that the only danger to the contract was a 5-0 diamond break. As declarer could do nothing about it if West had five diamonds, declarer turned his attention to the case when East had all of the outstanding diamonds: he would need to lead diamonds twice through East. If diamonds were 5-0, West was likelier to have four trumps. So, declarer decided to keep the ♠A in reserve as an entry to dummy, in case the diamonds really were 5-0. Consequently, declarer played low from the dummy at trick one and won the spade lead in hand with the king. After drawing trumps in four rounds, while East parted with two spades and two hearts, declarer led the ♦4 towards dummy. West discarded a spade and dummy’s ♦K diamonds won the trick. Declarer called for the ♦2, which was covered by the 9 and queen. Declarer was then in a position to pick up East’s diamonds while losing just one trick in the suit, by leading diamonds once more from dummy. South thus claimed 12 tricks: two spades, four diamonds and six trumps. The full deal:
