North in today’s deal was Paul Marston, a native New Zealander, who moved to Australia long ago and has been one of Australia’s leading players for over three decades. South was a former American professional who these days just writes a bridge column.
South intended his three-club bid as “checkback,” looking for threecard spade support. Sadly for him, that bid was treated as natural in Australia at that time and North raised! North happily cue bid his way to six clubs, but South didn’t need East’s double to know that six clubs would be an unplayable contract. He “corrected” to six spades with his fingers crossed, and now had to try to take 12 tricks.
South ducked the opening club lead to East’s jack and won the king of hearts shift with the ace. He cashed four rounds of spades, discarding hearts from the dummy, before leading a club to the ace and ruffing out East’s king. This was the position:
South probably needed a 3-3 diamond split, but he catered to a possible miracle by leading the nine of diamonds to the ace and a diamond back to his queen, noting the jack and 10 from East. A tricky East might have been hiding the eight, but South led a diamond to dummy’s seven to land his slam. Not bad!