What happened
Declarer won the lead with ♣A, gulped, and looking no further than dummy's long diamonds, led his singleton diamond and finessed the ♦Q with everything crossed. Not tonight.
When the dust settled, the defence had cashed five club tricks and a diamond, for FIVE down... oops!
What should have happened
The advice given to all beginners at bridge is to count winners and losers. This hand is a case in point. There a six spade winners, and three aces in the other three suits, that makes nine. No need to count losers... if we lose the lead, it'll be a bloodbath in No Trumps!
So we need to find three more tricks to make the slam, but do we look for them in hearts or diamonds?
The knee-jerk play is to take the diamond finesse immediately at trick 2. But hang on a minute, you don't need six more tricks, just three more will do. If the heart finesse works, that's still twelve tricks, so there's no need to risk the diamond finesse. Whereas if the diamond finesse works, you're still only guaranteed two diamond tricks... which is one short of what you need. The diamond finesse is irrelevant unless West has the precise holding of a doubleton ♦Kx. Otherwise, the suit doesn't come in without losing the lead, and you still need to take the heart finesse for the twelfth trick.
So cross to dummy at trick 2 with a spade and unblock the suit, then run ♥Q. If it holds, you have six spade tricks, four heart tricks and two side aces... that's twelve tricks, with 6NT making for a probable top.
Needless to say, West has ♥K and this line ends in disaster. But no worse than playing on diamonds, as both red kings are offside.
In fact, not only do both red suit finesses fail, but both major suits break 4-1. So neither 6♦ nor 6♥ can be made against best defence. According to the stats, the only making slam as the cards lie is 6♠, which ironically was the only slam that wasn't bid on the night. As I said, this hand was lucky for some, but perhaps I should have said "unlucky for most"!
Dave Simmons
May 2026
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