Finally, we can have a look at how a 6H slam might fare. Most average declarers would probably fail unless South leads the jack of clubs, a card some Souths might choose. Easy after that, dummy covers and declarer’s nine comes good. The lead of a doubleton jack is not a good lead against any contract unless you have a very good chance of finding partner with higher honours, which this time is nothing short of wishful thinking given the bidding. Here, it is disastrous, because declarer was looking at two possible club losers. A spade lead as it happens comes to no harm and neither does a diamond, but my choice would be the six of trumps. That is totally safe, even if partner has the queen or king. But what if partner has the singleton queen or king and you lead the jack? The low heart, as it happens, gives declarer an extra entry to dummy but it is not needed and declarer can proceed along sensible lines by winning in hand and immediately leading the nine of clubs to the queen. Unlucky! It loses to the king and now there would appear to be little chance of the slam making. But read on.

Board 3 Dealer South EW Vul

	QJ93 54 863 KT75
AT2 Q92 J95 Q432		K7 AK873 AKQ A98
	8654 JT6 T742 J6

Defending against slams should be much easier than against games, and, to go a step further, against part scores. That is because against a slam, you only need two tricks to defeat a small slam, and by the same token, you have to do your best to make it harder for declarer to make twelve tricks. How many inexperienced players give the slam away on the opening lead? And how many equally inexperienced players return the favour by equally poor declarer play? You’d be surprised. It is especially true in the case of slams that a poor opening lead will allow a slam to make but poor declarer play can allow a poor lead to succeed. Let’s take a look at a deal where two possible slams were bid, albeit not all that often.

Board 3 from Wednesday 24/07/24
Dealer South EW Vul

	QJ93 54 863 KT75
AT2 Q92 J95 Q432		K7 AK873 AKQ A98
	8654 JT6 T742 J6

This one comes from Tuesday's X-Clubs set. The opening lead was obvious but the play did not go according to how it should have. When you are leading your partner’s suit and have three small cards, e.g. 753, which card do you lead? Do you have an agreement with partner? I think most of us would lead the top card, some may have a “MUD” ( middle-up-down) agreement and I do know that some experts lead the lowest card to ‘give partner a count’. You decide what’s best after reading this article.

Board 16 from Tuesday 16/07/24
Dealer West EW Vul

	K A7 J742 AQJT95
T75 J53 AK53 K73		AJ86432 K T9 864
	Q9 QT98642 Q86 2

This X-Clubs deal, from last Tuesday presented East with a problem in the bidding and then North in the opening lead. North’s decision on the opening lead should have been easier than East’s decision to bid a heart slam. Let’s see what happened.

Board 7 from Tuesday 9//24
Dlr South All Vul

	QJ983 9 952 JT32
5 KQT86 QJ AK954		K7 AJ73 AK87 876
	AT642 542 T643 Q

Vil begins his new series with this interesting article - ed

One of the most underused, and misused, bids in bridge is DOUBLE. That is because often there is no clear understanding of when it is “Takeout” and when “Penalty”. Sometimes, admittedly, there can be some overlap, but any pair that can use the double properly will reap big benefits from their bidding. Let’s look at our first example, which comes from a session at X-Clubs, as will our second one in Chapter 2.

Board 11 from Tuesday 2/07/24
Dlr South Nil Vul

	AK987 T97 9 AKJ9
J32 K3 AJ4 QT763		Q64 QJ64 KQ82 54
	T5 A852 T7653 82