The McConnell Cup for women’s teams was held in Orlando last September. In the finals of that event, both Souths arrived in four spades.

In the open room, West took the heart nine in hand to try a small spade to the jack, which held the trick. When declarer led the spade king, East rose with the ace and pushed the club nine through. Declarer played small, and East continued the suit, forcing declarer to ruff in dummy. A small diamond to the queen in hand was followed by the trump queen, but declarer still had a trump and a club to lose, for one off.

In the closed room, the same contract was reached, and on the same lead, but on the auction shown here. Karen McCallum won with the king and played a trump to the king, which held. But now she played three rounds of diamonds, and though East could ruff the third round, declarer was in full control.

East switched to the club nine, covered by the king and won by West‘s ace. The club continuation was ruffed in dummy, and declarer continued with diamonds, leaving East no counter. When she ruffed in, declarer over-ruffed and trumped her club loser in dummy, losing just the trump ace.

McCallum reasoned that after West’s double and East’s twoheart bid, hearts appeared to be 4-4 and East had more hearts than clubs. If so, West had to have six clubs and thus probably a singleton spade. This produced a well-earned 10 IMPs to Team Baker, the eventual winners of the gold medal.

Today’s deal features an approach in which declarer takes his chances in the right order rather than putting all his eggs in one basket.

When South heard his partner transfer to spades, he had no reason to break the transfer, but at his third turn he could show a maximum hand with a source of tricks in his four-club call. Cue-bidding and Blackwood then got him to a slam that would have been excellent if West hadn’t hit upon the heart lead. How would you play it now?

This hand offers a simple choice of approaches. You can cash the spade ace, then take a finesse on the second round. This is an all-or-nothing play, but it will lead to 13 tricks if spades behave. Alternatively, you can cash the top spades and, if nothing nice happens, go after clubs, hoping to pitch your heart from dummy on the fourth club, regardless of whether West ruffs in.

Taking the spade finesse (as opposed to the combination chance) wins when West has four spades to the queen and precisely three clubs, or precisely three spades to the queen and fewer than three clubs. Those combined chances happen about one time in 10. By contrast, playing spades from the top, then relying on clubs, brings the contract home (while the other line would fail) whenever East has a doubleton spade queen or when he has three spades to the queen and three or more clubs. That happens almost one time in three. So, cashing the spade ace-king is a far superior line.

North’s response of two no-trump was a Jacoby-style forcing raise in hearts. South ignored East’s intervention and asked for aces, then, once his partner admitted to three key-cards, he made a grand slam try. After North showed the diamond king, South knew what to do.

West led the spade nine, suggesting an original holding of a singleton or doubleton in the suit, given dummy’s spade eight. When trumps broke 4-0, declarer knew East had started with eight spades and five in the minors. Thus, West had to have at least one card in each minor.

Once East followed to both a top club and a diamond, there were only three unknown minorsuit cards in his hand. Therefore, East could not hold a five-card minor, so it was safe to cash a second top club, then a diamond. When East discarded on the second round of clubs, declarer ruffed a spade with the trump king. After cashing the club queen, declarer led the heart two toward dummy. West inserted the eight, and dummy’s 10 won the trick. Now declarer ruffed dummy’s remaining club with the queen, then led the heart three to the five and seven. The heart ace drew West’s last trump, while South threw a diamond. Declarer ended up with two ruffs in hand, four trumps in dummy, and seven side-suit top cards.

Note that if East had followed twice in each minor, it would have been safe to cash the queens of both minors. Finally, if East had discarded on the second diamond, then a diamond could have been ruffed safely in dummy.

In today’s deal, South’s threeno-trump call was an attempt to protect his spade tenace. An alternative would have been a stopper-showing three spades instead, to highlight the danger of the diamonds. After all, if North’s pointed-suit holdings had been interchanged, five clubs would have been far better than three no-trump. Also, curiously, three no-trump by North likely would have made on a low spade lead!

Against three no-trump, West led the second-highest spade eight to deny an honor in the suit. This went to the jack, king and ace. Declarer could see that even taking four club tricks would probably not be enough. The defense would establish the spade suit and come to five winners before he had nine.

So South decided his best chance was to sneak a heart trick first. If the heart king held, he could turn to clubs with the game-going trick in his pocket. Alas, East won the first heart and persevered with spades. Not just any spade, though. South was marked with the spade queen, and if he had started with acequeen-six, the “normal” current count return of the spade three would block the suit, assuming declarer played low.

So East put the spade 10 on the table. Declarer ducked that and won the third round, hoping for a 6-3 split. He then turned to the clubs, cashing the ace first in case West miraculously had the singleton king. But no — East won the second club and had a fourth spade to lead to West, who cashed out for down one.

When South felt obligated to break his partner’s transfer by jumping to three hearts, North used the excuse of being vulnerable at teams to press on to game.

When West led the diamond queen, South saw that the mirror distribution meant he would need not only to find both major-suit kings onside, but also some sort of endplay for his 10th trick.

Placing all the top diamonds with West after the lead and East’s discouraging signal, declarer decided he would need to eliminate West’s black suits, then throw that player in with the diamond nine. But this would also require cutting the defenders’ communications in clubs.

If the club honors were split, declarer would need to convince East rather than West to take his club entry first. Deciding that leading the club jack from dummy might persuade East to duck his ace, for fear of solving a guess for South, declarer innocently played a low club out of hand at trick two. When West played low, East had to take his ace and could do no better than return a diamond.

Declarer won this, then led a spade to the queen, followed by a trump to the king and ace. South cashed the trump queen, then played a spade to the ace to extract West’s last safe exit card.

Finally, when declarer led a club to his queen and West’s king, that player could cash his diamond winner. However, he then had to lead a minor and let declarer discard a spade loser from one hand or the other.

It is rarely attractive to upgrade 19-counts in first or second seat to a two-no-trump opening. When investigating a slam, starting the exploration at the three-level is rarely optimal. Also, it can be difficult to locate 5-3 fits after a two-no-trump start. So South was sensible to open one spade. He jumped directly to four spades when he found the fit, since his aces and kings suggested a suit contract.

When West led the diamond queen, South could see 10 tricks via a diamond ruff in dummy, as long as trumps broke 3-2. But what if they broke 4-1?

In that case, the way home would be for South to score his small trumps via heart ruffs, thus coming to six trump tricks to go with his four top side-suit winners. But this would require careful planning.

To start with, South carefully won the diamond lead in hand and continued with the heart ace and another heart. East overtook West’s 10 with the jack and shifted to the club 10. Declarer rose with the ace and played the spade queen and a trump to dummy’s king — discovering the 4-1 break.

Now came the diamond king followed by a heart, ruffed low in hand. A diamond ruff with dummy’s last trump was followed by dummy’s last heart. When East discarded his second club, declarer scored his remaining low trump, with the spade ace still to come, for the 10th trick.

If East had ruffed in on the fourth heart, South would have discarded a club instead of over-ruffing, with two more trump tricks guaranteed.

In today’s auction, South opted for a simple overcall, rather than a preempt. Then West decided on a simple raise, planning to re-compete with a further raise if he had the chance. He didn’t, because North exploited the vulnerability to drive to five diamonds, hoping his clubs would come in handy.

No one had anything further to say, but looking at his high-card values, West sensibly led out ace and another diamond. Declarer realized that there was a spade trick to lose, and now that dummy was reduced to two trumps, declarer could no longer take three heart ruffs.

In order to bring his game home, declarer realized that he needed to bring in dummy’s clubs. At trick three, he played a club to the ace and ruffed a club, bringing down the king from East. If clubs broke 3-3, declarer would have the entries he needed via heart ruffs both to set up and then to enjoy the clubs. But if clubs broke 4-2, he would be an entry short.

South found a neat solution via a variation on the Morton’s Fork. He played his spade king next. If East had taken it, the spade queen would have been the third entry to dummy, allowing declarer to set up clubs. East saw through South’s stratagem and held back the ace, but declarer countered by cashing the heart ace, ruffing a heart and then leading the club jack, on which he threw the spade four from hand. West won with the club queen, but that was the last trick for the defense.

West led the fourth highest of the unbid suit, clubs, against three no-trump, letting East encourage under dummy’s ace. Declarer immediately began work on the diamonds, leading low from dummy toward his honors. If East had followed with the eight, declarer surely would have succeeded. The winning line of crossing back to dummy in hearts and leading the diamond nine would have unblocked the suit and seen declarer come home.

However, East threw a wrench into the works when he inserted the 10 at his first turn. Given his failure to support his partner, South was all but certain to hold five diamonds, so the play was unlikely to cause harm.

West took South’s queen and continued clubs to the jack and king, dummy throwing a spade. Declarer continued diamonds from his hand, and when West played the four, he called for dummy’s six! He was trying to pick up West’s ace-king-eightlow. As it was, though, East scored his diamond eight, and down went the game.

You can hardly blame declarer here. He could have played the diamond nine on the grounds that he wasn’t down in top tricks if East showed out, but his chance of coming home would have been so small that his actual play was completely logical.

It is interesting to note that East can afford this play of the diamond 10 from honor-10-eight as well. It may feel as if you are sacrificing something of value, but there is almost no scenario where the play will cost you.