Saucy Slam Zone by Ben Norton

A: ♠3. The default is to go on the offensive against suit-contract slams, and you’d usually look no further than a King-Queen sequence, but there’s no rush to attack declarer’s five-card suit. It’s unlikely that dummy’s second Heart will disappear, and the ♥K lead might help East to establish them.

A trump lead is inherently passive, so give that a miss. Between the black suits, a Spade offers slightly better chances of setting up a trick, for you need a tad less from partner. Say both black-suit Queens are on your left and the Aces on your right, partner might only need the ♠K 10 (or just the ♠K, if declarer misguesses) for a Spade lead to work, but a Club would require North to hold the ♣K J.

A Spade lead was the only one to set the hand, taken from an international online event. It didn’t serve to set up a trick, for partner had the ♠A, but it did hamper declarer’s communications. On any other start, declarer could throw a Heart on the third Club (dummy was 3.2.6.2) and ruff the Hearts good, with a Spade as the late entry to enjoy the long Hearts.

Your result so far:

A: ♥A. A trump lead usually isn’t the ticket against slams, but context is vital in bridge. How is declarer going to take twelve tricks here? Partner has the Diamonds under wraps (and probably doesn’t have much else) and you hold slow stoppers in both black suits. If you can only cut down on dummy’s ruffs, the contract may die a slow death. The best you can do is to lead the ♥A and another, taking out two of dummy’s trumps.

If partner has the ♦A, it won’t got away (and you might re-evaluate and try a Diamond at trick two). Even if you were to lead a Diamond and set up a slow trick, you wouldn’t be able to reach partner’s hand to enjoy it. You can also be fairly certain that declarer’s trumps are solid or near-solid on this sequence, meaning the ♥A lead won’t cost a trick.

Two rounds of Hearts would prevent declarer from ruffing a Club in dummy. He would then have to pick the Spades for four tricks, holding K 9 x opposite dummy’s A Q 8 x x. He might take a second-round finesse through you, but at least this defense would put him to the test. On any other lead, a Club ruff would provide the twelfth trick and declarer would make at a canter (I led a Diamond).

Your result so far:

A: ♦A. It seems natural to lead partner’s suit, but again, there’s no rush to do so. It’s most unlikely that a second-round Spade winner will stand up, so you needn’t concern yourself with retaining the ♦A to stay a tempo ahead. Still, it could be right to sit back and wait for your tricks, say if declarer needs to lead up to his ♦K for the twelfth.

Your Heart holding brings great concern, though. Three small cards in dummy’s long suit doesn’t bode well for your trick-taking prospects as there’s an excellent chance that declarer will have five Heart tricks to take straight off the bat. In that case, you had better look to cash out, either with the pointed-suit Aces, the ♦A K, or perhaps even a Diamond ruff. Laying down the ♦A keeps you on lead and caters for all of those.

A second-round Diamond ruff was needed to set the hand, with dummy’s Hearts indeed providing lots of discards.

Your result so far:

A: ♣6. This one is different again. You’d usually lead aggressively in the hope of setting up a trick to cash when one of you gets in with your presumed keycard. However, it’s unlikely that your side has one here, given that you have seven points. In fact, partner won’t have much at all.

There’s no evidence that either opponent has a source of tricks either, so there’s no rush to establish tricks and little to be gained by making an active lead. Put the ball in play with a safe Club and wait for your tricks. You can be hopeful of taking two tricks with your meager assets, sitting over the strong hand.

As it happened, an aggressive lead was needed, to set up a trick before the ♦K was knocked out, but virtue needn’t always be its own reward, for a Club was the winner, establishing partner’s ♣K for the setting trick!

Your result so far:

A: ♦A. It doesn’t pay to double freely-bid slams for blood, for the extra 50 or 100. The double should instead be used to ask for an unusual lead. Partner’s ‘Lightner’ double is probably based on a side-suit void, and he’s alerting you to the possibility of a ruff. He can infer that you have a keycard after East didn’t try for a grand slam.

So, it’s just a matter of finding partner’s void for the second trick. Yes, if he’s void in either Hearts or Clubs, you can probably set the hand by two, using the ♦A as a re-entry, and you would probably bet Clubs is that suit based on your own hand, but what if you’re wrong? You might lose the ruff altogether.

It’s better to lay down the ♦A to get a look at dummy and possibly a signal from partner, then decide which suit partner is void in (indeed, it might even be Diamonds, despite partner’s failure to double the 5♦ response to RKCB).

Partner would drop the ♦Q under your Ace, a suit preference signal for Hearts, and you would deliver him a Heart ruff to set the slam for 100. If you led a Heart, then take an undeserved 300, but anything other than a Heart or the ♦A results in -1210.

Your result so far: