“Conversation should touch everything, but should concentrate itself on nothing.” - Oscar Wilde

The defenders lead a top club against your spade slam. After you ruff, how should you proceed?

A cursory glance suggests that if you have to lose a trump, then you need to avoid a heart loser. One possibility is that you would need East to have both the queen and jack of hearts, but that is highly unlikely on the bidding. However, you can also succeed if East holds no more than two hearts. This is extremely likely on the bidding, since West’s takeout double promises heart tolerance, and thus at least three hearts.

You play a top spade from hand at trick two, and when West shows out on the first spade, you rise with dummy’s ace and ruff a club. Now you cash dummy’s top diamonds and ruff a diamond. Finally, cash the ace and king of hearts (on which East might as well discard, since he can see that ruffing would be fatal).

But there is no escape for the defenders. You exit with a trump, reducing to a position where you have only hearts and spades in each hand, while East has nothing but minor-suit cards. At this point East must give you a ruff and discard, whether he leads a club or a diamond. You ruff in hand with your last trump and discard dummy’s remaining heart. All dummy has left is master trumps; contract made.

The key here was to eliminate the minors from your hand and dummy before giving East the lead.

Bid with the aces

South holds:

Answer: Should you pre-empt with a six-card suit? Typically, not in any suit but clubs, unless the six-carder looks like seven, since you have a weak-two available. But I’m a firm believer in getting in where I can: Nonvulnerable, I’d open three clubs in first or third seat. I would not act if vulnerable, or in second seat, when one should keep pre-emptive bids up to strength.