Assume you're in six spades and West leads a trump. East wins with the ace and returns a trump, West following suit. How would you continue?
There seems to be nothing to the play, yet the hand deserves serious thought. To begin with, if you go down one when the slam can be made, you finish minus 100, instead of plus 1,630. That amounts to a difference of 1,730 points, and that's a lot of points in any language.
Let's say that after you win the trump return, you cash the A-K of diamonds, which is one way to play the hand. When East shows out on the second diamond, and the hearts subsequently fail to divide 3-3, you wind up down one. You might complain that you were unlucky to run into such unfavorable breaks, but you won't draw much sympathy from your opponents — or your partner.
This is because you would have made the contract had you started by cashing the A-K of hearts and ruffing a heart. You could then ruff a club in dummy, ruff another heart and claim the balance. Your K-J of clubs would go off on dummy's fifth heart and the queen of diamonds.
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Actually, this is the correct line of play. By tackling hearts first, you make the slam if the suit is divided 3-3 or 4-2, regardless of how the diamonds are divided. Furthermore, if you cash the A-K of hearts first and find the suit divided 5-1, you still have time to test the diamonds and make the slam if that suit divides 3-3 or 4-2.
However, if you play the diamonds first and get a 5-1 split, you are sunk unless the hearts are divided precisely 3-3. Playing the hearts first is therefore the superior line of play.
