Reading Eagle – 16 Jun 2005
The biggest swings in team-of-four play occur on those rare hands where a pair at one table bids and makes a grand slam, while their teammates at the other table also bid and make a grand slam with the opposing cards! Unlikely as this might seem, that’s exactly what happened in today’s deal.
At the first table, South wound up in seven clubs doubled on the bidding shown. Had West led the ace of hearts, declarer would have gone down one. But it seemed to West that the ace of diamonds was much more likely to survive as the opening salvo than the ace of hearts.
This was certainly a reasonable assumption, but declarer ruffed the first diamond in dummy and easily made the grand slam. He trumped four diamonds in dummy and four spades in his hand, establishing dummy’s spades as well as his last diamond. After drawing East’s lone trump, South discarded his heart loser on a spade and had the rest of the tricks.
At the second table, after a different sequence of bids, West wound up in seven hearts. A spade lead by North would have stopped this grand slam, but instead North made the uninspired lead of the king of clubs. Declarer ruffed, drew two rounds of trumps, took the obvious finesses in spades and diamonds, and so made all the tricks. So the successful team scored 2,330 points at the first table for making seven clubs doubled, and another 2,210 points at the second table for making seven hearts undoubted, and thus gained 4,540 points on one deal!
What all this teaches us is difficult to say, but the fact is that at both tables a different opening lead would have set both slams!