Hand of the Week
| West | North | East | South |
| 1♣ | 1♥ | 1♠ | |
| 3♥ | 4♥ | Pass | 4NT |
| Pass | 5♣ | Pass | 6♠ |
| All Pass |
West’s 3♥ was a weak, preemptive raise. West leads the ♥10 to dummy’s ace. What is your plan to make 12 tricks?
Solution
The first move is to count your tricks. If trumps are 3-2, you can make all of the tricks – five trumps, a heart, a heart ruff, the ♦A and five clubs. However, there is a good chance that West’s pre-emptive raise to three hearts is based on a trump shortage. Suppose the full deal is:
Now you have a loser in trumps, but all that does is reduce your 13 tricks to 12 – provided you are careful. Your plan should be to lose a trump trick at a convenient moment. In fact, the only way to make the slam on this layout is to duck a round of trumps at trick two. Suppose East wins and switches to his singleton club. You win with the king, ruff a heart with the ♠9 and cash the ♠A. You can then return to your hand with the ♦A to draw the remaining trumps. You have made six tricks already (three trumps, a heart, a heart ruff and a club) and there are six more waiting to be cashed (a trump, a diamond and four clubs).
Why were you “riding your luck”? Well, because on the above layout any non-heart lead from West sees the slam fail!