ACESONBRIDGE

In today’s hand, both South and North stretch to end up in a very poor slam.

On winning the diamond lead, East sees that the slam hinges on how well declarer negotiates the trump suit. East may consider returning the diamond queen, tapping the dummy to weaken declarer’s trump holding there.

However, this defense pushes South into the winning line of play. He would have to advance the heart queen, covered all around, then cross back to dummy to run the heart nine, pinning West’s eight.

East, foreseeing that the natural defense will not work, should make a passive spade return. This leaves declarer more options in the trump suit, one of which is to finesse the jack, then lay down the heart ace, picking up king-doubleton onside. After all, East is known to have six diamonds for his overcall, so he should be shorter in hearts. Alternatively, declarer could start with the heart queen. Once it was covered, he would have to decide whether to cross to dummy to lead the heart nine or to try to drop the 10 from either defender. Since running the nine only picks up the bare eight offside, this plan looks inferior to me. Declarer may decide that if East held king-doubleton in hearts, he probably would have returned the diamond queen, but if an opponent is not given a chance to go wrong, he never will.

Finally, if East plays a diamond at trick two, West might distract declarer by dropping the heart eight on the first round of trumps, persuading declarer to play him for 10-8 doubleton.