Oops!

by Ted Muller

South to make 6♠
Opening lead: ♣6

The only possible route to success is to win the first eight tricks in the plain suits, then score the four trumps separately.  That simple insight paves the way to the winning line of play.

Playing low from dummy, south wins the club lead cheaply in hand.  At trick two, he must advance the jack of hearts!  If that wins, then he takes a deep finesse in diamonds.  If the heart lead is covered, then dummy wins and a heart is returned to the nine for the diamond lead.  This enables declarer to cash three hearts, three diamonds and two clubs, being careful to play off the heart and club winners prior to leading the third diamond, to this position:

A club is played from dummy and ruffed with the seven as RHO follows helplessly with a lesser trump.  Now a red card is led.  If it is ruffed low, dummy overruffs with the ten and crossruffs the two top trumps, giving up the last trick.  If instead LHO ruffs with the jack, declarer overruffs with the king and trumps a club with the ace.  The next lead from hand enables dummy to score the ten of spades en passant for the twelfth trick.  What fun!

In case you were wondering, the combined spade holding in the above problem (A,K,10,7) is not the minimum required for fulfilling a slam.

Once again, without a trump lead, eight tricks are cashed in the plain suits, and a club is ruffed with the seven of spades.  Now a red card is ruffed as cheaply as possible; then dummy's last club is led and taken by LHO, who is endplayed in trumps.