With 19 HCP in South's hand it is likely the contract will be in a Slam. South bids either "1 Spade", or "2 Spades" depending on partnership agreement regarding responding to an opening bid with 16+ HCP. Either way North will respond at the lowest level and rebid their Hearts (showing minimal opening HCP and 6 cards in the Heart Suit). It is now straight forward for South to bid "6 Hearts" directly or via a slam convention (e.g. Blackwood).
East leads the 6 of Diamonds - won by North's Ace. You count your top winners - 3 in the Clubs - 4 in the Spades 1 in the Diamonds and 3 in the Hearts - 11 tricks. If the Hearts split 3-2 we will make the extra tricks from the Heart suit, making a Grand Slam 13 tricks! However, if the Hearts split 4 -1 and the Heart Jack is in the 4 card hand then we could have a problem with with the Diamond suit giving the opposition up to a further 3 tricks should we proceed with an early drawing of trumps. We need to plan to eliminate the losing Diamonds from North's hand before drawing trumps to ensure we make our contract. So after winning with the Diamond Ace:
Lead low Diamond from Hand - ruff in Dummy
Play A and K Spades - discard a Diamond from hand on second Spade
Play low Spade from Dummy - ruff high in hand (Ace of Hearts)
Lead final Diamond from Hand - if East plays their Heart Jack, discard a low Club, otherwise Ruff in Dummy
Cash A and K of Clubs
Lead Q Clubs and Ruff in hand
Draw trumps
If Jack of hearts does not fall, lose the final round of trumps
On the day, only one pair bid to the slam and no-one found the tricky diamond lead, and for North it was a relatively straight forward play to draw trumps (finding the opponents Jack will win) and to make 12 tricks whilst still having the Ace of Diamonds control of that suit |