West’s double which came out-of-the-blue, as it were, is called the Lightner Double and asks for an unusual lead, usually the first side suit bid by dummy, if nothing else stands out. Leading from your longest and strongest suit would not constitute an unusual lead since that is quite commonly what West would be expected to lead if not given any other clues. East is asking for a heart but West did not lead one. What does that mean, most likely that West doesn’t have a heart to lead and, therefore, that East has AKJxxx in hearts.

Despite the fact that you didn’t lose two heart tricks immediately, you can still only see 10 tricks in the other suits since the diamond suit is so badly duplicated. You will have to make all four club tricks to bring the slam home. You play a round of trumps to find that East has none.  It is a guess which way to finesse the clubs but since West probably has nine minor cards while East has only seven, there might be a slightly better chance playing West for the QC.  Running the JC, will only yield four tricks if West has Qxx in clubs or Q9xx(xx) and you guess correctly once you return to hand.

Now look at all the hands.

As you can see East has the QC and finessing West will fail and you will only make 10 tricks.

Now play the hand to make twelve tricks, “double dummy”.

Before I outline the double dummy play, note that, with six hearts in his hand, the Lightner Double is pretty unsafe in this situation but beating a vulnerable slam by one trick will yield a net gain of around 1400 to 1500 Match Points while the double will only cost 230 Match Points, if twelve tricks are made. The Lightner Double is used for just this reason. There is a lot of upside and not much downside.To make twelve tricks, declarer takes the diamond lead with (say) AD, plays three rounds of trumps ending dummy, finesses the JC successfully and now plays KD, KC and all trumps, leaving three cards in each hand. In order to keep the QC protected and to keep a card better than the QH, East must come down to just AH and Qx in clubs. Declarer now plays a heart from hand, end-playing East and forcing him/her to lead away from the QC around to the A 10 in dummy. Declarer must watch East’s discards carefully to ensure that East does not unguard the QC and keep both the AH and KH in which case declarer must play a club from hand and the AC in dummy.

With no particular fit, Small Slams in NT require 33 to 34 HCPs and Grand Slams 37 to 38 HCPs. You have a minimum combined holding of 36HCPs and a six card suit so you should be looking for a Grand Slam having ensured the missing four HCPs is not the AS!

You need to play transfer bids over NT openings and Roman Key Card asking to find the best contract. You bid 2S (or sometimes 2NT by agreement) which asks partner to bid 3C. Once he/she does so you bid 4NT which is a Key Card Ask in clubs. Partner will bid 5S which shows two key cards (the two outstanding being the AS and KC) plus the QC.

You now know that you have six certain club tricks plus AS,KS, AH and AD making 10 tricks in total off the top. You now bid 5NT for Kings (excluding the KC). Partner shows 1 x Kings so you are missing one King giving you 11 tricks off the top or probably 13 tricks if partner has a four card major with either  the QS or the KH and QH. Partner has shown up with 12HCPs based on his responses to your key card asks.  (viz AS, KC,QC and another K). Therefore, partner has another 3 to 4HCPs in Qs and Js. With this situation you would be unlucky to be forced into playing a 50% chance finesse for your 13^th trick and should bid the Grand Slam. It is unlikely that partner’s holding would allow more tricks to be made in clubs than NT so a 7NT bid is better than a 7C bid, especially when playing Pairs. BTW only 7/13 pairs even bid a small slam, so we all should continue working to improve our bridge.

This is an example of where the Weak NT together with Puppet Stayman really comes into its own because, if you Key Card ask, you know partner has a 5332 shape with 13-14HCPs with AS and a heart suit headed by the A and K. Based on this you can count 11 tricks based on 5 heart tricks (68% of time), 2 x spades, 1 x diamonds and 3 x clubs. The 12^th trick  could come from partner’s KD if he/she has it (still not more than 14HCPs) or from the AQx in spades in partner’s hand, or a spade ruff in your hand or the clubs breaking 3-3 or partner holding JC. You ask for kings and partner advises none (other than KH). This is still a very good basis for bidding 6H and only one other pair did this.   

You know that your partnership only has 31 or 32HCPs so bidding a small slam is good but is there any way of finding out whether there is a chance of Grand Slam (which happens to be on)?  You need partner to have the JC plus 3 x spades for this a likely proposition. I don’t know of any bidding sequence that can give you all the information you need. Do you?

There is a huge downside of getting this wrong, either bidding a Grand Slam missing three key cards or not bidding a Grand Slam when it looks very high probability.

I got it wrong but the correct bid is 5S which partner will convert to 6S with four rather than one key card whereupon you can raise to 7S if you choose. I was in 7S doubled by my RHO which partner took out to 7NT which my RHO also doubled.

Assuming you were left in 7S doubled and LHO led the second best lead of a diamond ( I am down immediately on a heart lead) how do you make 7S? You should assume AH, AD, KS with South. When in trouble play for the friendliest distribution which actually applied.

                   West                                                       East                                                                 

                  S AQJx                                                 S 109xx

                  H KQxxx                                              H x

                  D Kxx                                                   D A

                  C ------                                                  C  KQJ9xxx

Once you conclude that South has S KQ94 and  H A and others you will realise that with normal play leading a spade towards the AJ10 etc will always lose four tricks by way of 3 x spade and 1 x heart losers so you must find another way.

The only way to avoid 3 x spade losers is to force South to lead away from his spade holding and South will only do that if there is no other choice. Once South has cashed the AH, it does not matter if you are  given  ruff and sloughs along the way so long as South’s spade holding remains intact.

Declarer must strip out all the side suits so that South has no choice but to lead trumps when he/she is thrown in. This can only be achieved by what is called a (Double) Trump (Reduction) Coup. While stripping out the side suits declarer must ensure that his/her long trump suit is the same length as the defender’s when the defender is thrown in. In this case the six card trump suit in dummy must be reduced to four trumps before South is thrown in. Otherwise South will have an idle card that he/she can play and declarer will be forced to lead trumps to South instead and go one down in the process.

Look at the full set of hands. The play should proceed as follows (assuming no signals):

1. QD, 2C, 2D, AD   (2) KH, 2H, 3H, AH (first defensive trick)

South has several options for a lead now. If he leads a heart declarer wins with QH; if a club West plays QC and if covered by KC wins AC in dummy;   if a diamond West wins in hand with the KD ditching another club.

If declarer is in hand with KD, he/she ditches a second club plays the QH and a ruffs the small diamond in dummy before playing the 10H. If South does not cover, West ruffs anyway and crosses to AC before playing the last heart and ruffing that as well. A similar line is adopted if declarer wins the QH in hand. If declarer wins the AC in dummy, he/she plays a heart to the QH ruffs a diamond in dummy, ruffs a heart in hand, ruffs the KD in dummy(!) and ruffs the last heart to hand.

The end position for the first two scenarios is as follows:

                                   North (irrelevant)

West                                                                                   East

S  8                                                                                      S   AJ1076

H -----                                                                                  H ------

D ------                                                                                 D -------

C QJ74                                                                                 C -------

                                     South

                                  S KQ94

                                  H ------

                                  D 9

                                  C ------

Declarer either leads 8S or a club and ruffs in the dummy (say with 6S). South over-ruffs with 9S his/her second trick and exits with the diamond. West trumps in dummy with the 7S and exits with JS. If South overtakes, he  is end-played and forced to lead around to dummy’s tenace. If South doesn’t overtake declarer cashes the AS for the tenth trick.

The end position for the last scenario is as follows:

                                  North (irrelevant)

West                                                                                   East

S  8                                                                                      S   AJ107

H -----                                                                                  H ------

D ------                                                                                 D -------

C J743                                                                                C  8

                                     South

                                  S KQ94

                                  H ------

                                  D 9

                                  C ------

West leads the JC which is a winner. South can ruff and lead a diamond which declarer ruffs in dummy with the 7S before leading JS as before. If South discards the diamond on the QC, declarer plays another club or 8S and plays the 7S from dummy. Again, South has to lead away from his/her holding and can only make two more tricks. 

It does not appear that this contract can be made if declarer leads a round of trumps to begin with because the timing is lost.

Trump Reduction Coups can actually be more than single or double providing there are enough entries in the other hand to reduce the trump suit to the required length and sometimes an extra entry to pull off the coup. The defender with the problem trump holding must also follow suit at the necessary moments. I have actually heard of a quadruple Trump Reduction Coup being executed but any type of trump coup is rare.