Careful Declarer
By Mike Lawrence

East made an excellent bid of five hearts. It was true he had some defense against spades, but he also had a good hand in support of hearts. Whatever West had, five hearts should be inexpensive, and on a good day, the opponents would continue bidding. East had his wish come true. Not only did South bid again, he bid a slam. If North has the queen or jack of spades, East is sure to have two spade tricks.

It turns out that dummy did not have a spade honor so East's spade holding is less useful than he hoped for. Still, South has to make his slam if he can. As you saw, he did not. Was it an unmakeable slam?

South erred at trick one. It is amazing to me how many contracts are lost at the first trick.

If South had discarded any club or any high diamond, he would have been able to lead the TWO of diamonds at trick three and if West played low, (as surely he would), South would have finessed dummy"s eight. Now declarer could take another trump finesse and later another diamond finesse losing just the one trump trick.

As it was, South had eight cards to discard at trick one, seven of them right and one of them wrong. With unerring accuracy, South found the one wrong card.

Not to laugh. The majority of the players who have seen this hand have done the wrong thing.