Bridge

WHEN this hand appeared in an international teams event, a spade slam was reached in many matches but no one managed to make it. When you see the solution, I don't think you'll be surprised by that.

On a heart lead declarer has no chance, but most Wests led the ace of diamonds. The declarers ruffed, ruffed a heart, ruffed a diamond, ruffed a heart, ruffed a diamond and ruffed their last heart. From here there is no winning line, since South has to lose two clubs.

The bidding and play to the first few tricks make the actual layout very likely. That said, even in the VuGraph room with sight of all 52 cards, none of the commentators found the winning line until much later. To make the contract declarer has to ruff just two low diamonds while ruffing all his hearts, and use two trump entries to get back to hand. He must not cash his king of diamonds, even though that means leaving it stranded in an entryless dummy.

Now he runs his trumps, and when the last one is led he has four clubs left in hand. On this trick West must come down to either one diamond and three clubs or all four clubs. In the former case dummy keeps K 10 diamonds and 10 9 clubs; in the latter K diamonds and 10 9 6 of clubs. Now declarer ducks a club to West and he must either give declarer the rest of the club suit or concede one extra trick while allowing an entry to dummy's king of diamonds.