We are taught that aces are made to take kings – in other words, we should not waste their power by simply leading them out and winning a trick comprising our ace and only low cards from the opponents.

However, sometimes we need to resist the temptation to use our ace to win the trick even though an opponent has played the king and we are in a position to behead it with our ace.

The bidding was straightforward: North opened 1♣ and South, with 16 points and a good 5-card suit, made a strong jump shift response of 2♥. North realised that they were in the slam zone but contented himself with a 2♠ rebid. When South replied 2NT, suggesting a relatively balanced hand including a diamond stopper, North raised to the obvious slam.

West led ♥10 (trying to give away as little as possible) – although aggressive leads are normal against a small slam in a suit, against 6NT a passive lead is more often correct.

Declarer won this in hand with his ♥K and played another heart to dummy’s ♥A, confirming that there was no nasty split in the suit. Of course, this is not the normal way to tackle a suit like this, but on this occasion there were plenty of entries so that the temporary blockage in the heart suit was not important.

With nine tricks available in the majors, declarer now had two chances to fulfil his contract. If East held ♦A then declarer could lead twice from dummy towards his ♦KQx. This would provide two diamond tricks which, with the ♣A, would give twelve in total.

Alternatively, if the ♦K lost to ♦A he could then fall back on the club finesse. As you can see, this latter approach would give him the slam.

Putting his plan into action, at trick three declarer led a diamond from dummy and, when East played low, he tried his ♦K. But West had been thinking too, and he allowed the ♦K to win, contributing his ♦3 without a flicker.

Declarer now believed that he was home and dry. He cashed his winning hearts (perhaps hoping to inconvenience the defence) and discarded clubs from dummy. Now he entered dummy with a spade and confidently led a second diamond to his ♦Q.

He was shocked when West produced the ♦A, and West promptly played another diamond. In a way declarer was lucky, because when East won with his ♦J at least he didn’t have another diamond to play. Nevertheless, West’s imaginative duck in diamonds had defeated the slam; had he won the first diamond with his ♦A then declarer would have resorted to the (winning) club finesse and made his contract.

Note that, in order for the defence to defeat this slam, not only did West have to avoid taking South’s ♦K with his ♦A but he had to do so without apparent thought. Had he gone into a deep study before playing low (which would be entirely unethical if he did not have ♦A) then declarer might well have turned to the club finesse rather than try a second diamond from dummy.

Bob Baker