Indoor: Bridge

After an early mistake in the play, declarer was distinctly fortunate to be able to stage a recovery in his slam on this deal. North opened One No-trump (16-18 points) and, rather wildly, South jumped to Six Spades. Yes, he held 100 for honours, but there could easily have been two aces missing.

West led !J against the slam and, after winning in hand, declarer laid down the ace of spades to guard against West holding the singleton queen. Nothing happened, so he crossed to !Q and took a winning trump finesse, discovering that East still held the guarded queen. The only hope now was to reduce his trumps to the same length as East's and to have the lead in dummy at trick twelve.

Accordingly, South cashed the queen then king of diamonds and ruffed a diamond in hand. Then came a club to the nine and ace. South won the club return on the table, ruffed the ace of hearts, and re-entered dummy with a club to trap East's trump trick.

All very elegant, if lucky, but South made an "unsafety" play when he laid down the ace of spades at trick two. I expect that you can see why. If West did hold a singleton trump, it was more likely to be one of the 3, 5 or 7 than the queen.

So the right play in the suit would have been to take a first-round finesse, after which there would have been no problem.

Game all; dealer North

North

46 4

!A Q 7

#A K 8 7

2K J 10 9

West East

43 4Q 7 5 2

!J 10 9 8 3 !6 5 2

#J 10 3 2 #6 5 4

28 5 4 2A 6 3

South

4A K J 10 9 8

!K 4

#Q 9

2Q 7 2