A Safety Play
By Mike Lawrence

South got shoved around a bit in the bidding and arrived at a good slam in spite of it. How can he overcome the known terrible split in his side suit?

Good players no longer sit still when their opponents open with a strong two club bid, something I observed in a previous hand. South ended up in six spades on a sequence which had very little to do with science. South opened two clubs, West overcalled three clubs, North overbid a little with three hearts, and East went the limit with five diamonds. South still hadn't shown his spades so did so at the five level. North's raise to six spades was an educated guess.

South won the diamond lead and appreciating that ruffing clubs would not work given West's club overcall, decided to set up dummy's hearts. South played the king and ace of hearts and ruffed the third heart (East having three to the jack) with the ace of trumps.

What now?

If spades were 3-2, declarer could now win the rest of the tricks by drawing trump and running hearts.

But what if trumps were 4-1? East seemed to have a huge number of diamonds and he has shown up with three hearts. A singleton spade was possible.

Barring East's having four spades, virtually impossible, six spades is cold. How can South arrange that?

There is a way. I encourage you to look for it.