Stay calm and bring home your grand slam

You find yourself in a 35 HCP 7NT contract during a short swiss match against the number one seed. You are pretty sure their methods will stop them in 6NT, so the whole match likely depends on whether or not you can make this contract. Twelve top tricks and one obvious chance of a thirteenth. Are you up to the task?

 

 

 

North
♠	A96
♥	QJ63
♦	AK97
♣	K5
South
♠	K842
♥	AK5
♦	Q106
♣	AQ7

 

It was a simple power auction to get to 7NT, one of you being a touch exuberant in placing the final contract. The opening lead is a low heart, which you win in hand as RHO follows suit.

Okay, so you have two spades, four hearts, three top diamonds, and three top clubs. That’s twelve top tricks, and the diamonds look like a real possibility for the thirteenth trick if the diamond jack falls. Can you improve your chances?

Perhaps you are not so comfortable with recognizing and executing squeezes. But would you concede to me that if one of the opponents has the guarded jack of diamonds and also four spades then they might not be able to hang onto everything as you run your winners?

Cause that’s as far as you need to take the analysis, and let the cards take care of the rest – just pay attention to the key suits as the defenders discard.

Makes sense you want to leave spades and diamonds to the end. So cash all your other winners first. You will come down to :

 

North
♠	A9
♥	void
♦	AK97
♣	void
South
♠	K82
♥	void
♦	Q106
♣	void

 

 

Now at this point, I don’t care which hand you ended up in – don’t worry about that. Everything you have done so far is very simple – cash winners.

Now all you have to do is continue to cash your winners. If diamonds are 3-3 or the jack is coming down doubleton, you have thirteen tricks.

Alas, LHO showed out on the third round of diamonds, so East still has the jack. That just leaves the spades to play.

 

 

North
♠	A9
♥	void
♦	7
♣	void
South
♠	K82
♥	void
♦	void
♣	void

 

Okay, so just play the spades out. First the ace, then the king, and you can fall off your chair when you play the two of spades at trick 13, and everyone shows out !!

Congratulations, you just bid and made 7NT on a simple squeeze against the number one seed !

The whole hand?

 

 

Dealer:south Vul: NS		North
		♠	A96
		♥	QJ63
		♦	AK97
		♣	K5
West				East
♠	75			♠	QJ103
♥	10972			♥	84
♦	85			♦	J643
♣	J8642			♣	1093
		South
		♠	K842
		♥	AK5
		♦	Q106
		♣	AQ7

 

Let’s recap. You counted twelve top tricks. You thought diamonds were your best bet for the thirteenth trick. You would concede there is no rush to play the diamond suit; let’s leave that to the end.

You would agree the only other possible source of a thirteenth trick is from the spade suit – it simply cannot come from anywhere else. Again, leave those alone for now.

So you cash all your winners, leaving these two key suits till the end. At that point, play your diamonds off. If the jack pops up, we can all go home. If not, hope for a minor miracle in spades.

Now some readers may write in and say, Ross maybe you can develop a count on the opponents’ hands, and divine East is likely to hold diamond length versus West. In that case, a diamond finesse against East’s jack will also get the job done.

Yes, discovery plays and inferential counts are always a possibility when you need to locate a key card, but in this case, with no extreme distributional clues, you really don’t have enough solid information to back up a play like that here.

Just take your winners and claim your 13 imp pick up.