IS THIS THE LUCKIEST SLAM OF ALL TIME?

Bruce Springsteen said, "When it comes to luck, you make your own."

I have always felt that the better you play, the luckier you will be, not only at the bridge table.

Which is the luckiest slam contract ever? My vote goes for this deal, which was declared by Jose Le Dentu from France and included in his book, "Donnes Extraordinaires."

Le Dentu asks the reader to critique the auction.

Understandably, he criticizes North's three-club positive and four-diamond rebid. But he makes no comment about his (old-fashioned) strong two-bid, when surely it would have been better to begin with two no-trump. Also, he ignores East's crazy double. Reading that double as Lightner, asking for the first suit bid by the dummy, West led the club six.

Having only one chance -- luck in three suits -- Le Dentu played dummy's club 10. When it held, he led a diamond to his queen, overtook the club king with dummy's ace, discarded the spade 10 on the club queen, repeated the trump finesse and cashed the diamond ace. Now, needing only one heart loser, Le Dentu led the heart two from hand. Yes, the unbelievable happened: The ace did drop out of the sky. Six spades doubled and made!

All this contract needed, given no heart lead, was a singleton heart ace and West with jack-third of clubs and three low diamonds. By my calculations, this is about a 0.03% contract. But at least Le Dentu made the most of his luck.

Copyright United Feature Syndicate (Asia Features)