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Play Safe? Board 28:
West, looking at around 9 tricks, opens his longer suit, 1C. East responds 1S. South porbably passes -- usually the right course when they bid your long suit -- but South's spades are quite strong and the response may be on Qxxx or such. Many experts play that after the opponents bid two suits, all suit bids are natural except in known 5 card suits. You would want a suit at least this good to volunteer it knowing you have a bad to horrible break; adding the ten of spades would probably tempt me to bid if I were sure about our understandings. Most players, however, would take 2S as some sort of Michaels bid, a quite unnecessary treatment when both double and 2NT are available to show hearts and diamonds.
Assuming South passes, West proceeds with a 2D reverse, suggesting more clubs than diamonds and something like 17+ points. With extra length such as here, a concentrated 13 is enough. East can bid 2H whether natural or artificial -- he'd like to hear delayed spade support or find out more about West's hand. West reveals at least 5-6 shape by rebidding 3D. East can now count on at least 19 out of 20 hcp in the minors for 10 tricks plus the Ace of hearts. If the diamonds are solid or can be etablished by a ruff (West is likely to have one of the minor suit Jacks) there should be a good play for slam. East cannot be sure spades are controlled but chances are partner is short or has theAce or King, or perhaps they won't lead them. Blackwood reveals one Ace and East bids 6C. (Playing RKCB, East first sets the trump suit by bidding 4C over 3D, and West asks for key cards.)
North can lead his spade to try for a ruff -- they didn't confirm all the Aces, so partner may have the Ace of spades or trumps -- or try to preserve his diamond winner by leading a trump. I'd probably lead the trump but North lead spades against my partner, Jack Hinckle. West ruffs and, looking closely, has a 100% line of play -- trump to the Ace, overtake the Queen, pull the last trump and lead a low diamond toward the nine. West can pressure the defenders first by playing two more trumps, watchign for diamond discards.
Should West take the safety play? With six diamonds out, there are 64 possible combinations for the defenders (2 raised to 6th power), which includes a void and six possible singletons for each defender. Four of those would be the helpful Jack or 8, so the odds two diamond losers if you don't play safe are about 8 out of 64, roughly 12.5%. I would not expect very many pairs to be in this slam and so it does seem reasonable to take the sure bet. Surprisingly, three pairs did bid the slam.
Trying for an overtrick (worth about 1 matchpoint in this case), West attempts to ruff a diamond in dummy, catering to the likely 4-2 split. South, however, ruffs the second diamond and returns partner's spade lead. Declarer can ruff high but has difficultty avoidng a diamond loser.
Perhaps a better line for the overtrick would be to play one high diamond (running the slight 2/64 risk of a void), trump to dummy (leaving one for ruffing), diamond toward the hand. South has no trump in this case but would also be ruffing "air" if he did have another trump. When South discards, declarer ruffs a low diamond, returns to hand by ruffing a spade high, pulls trumps and cashes his remaing minor suit cards for an attempted squeeze. When nothing develops he can cash the heart ace for his 12th trick and concede the last. This appears to improve the odds of making seven with minimal risk.
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