Phil Becker of Beachwood is one of the most active and successful bridge players in the Cleveland area. His 1993 master point total is fast approaching 500 and his grand total is closing in on 5,000. He sent me the above hand, however, because he was impressed with the bidding of his brother, Doug Becker, who has only recently taken up the tournament trail under his brother's tutelage.
The Beckers traveled to Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario for a regional tournament and they were playing in a Flight A pair event. Phil was sitting South. Once he had shown his distribution, it was up to Doug to set the contract. The opposition did the best they could by blocking the auction with preemptive club bids. A double of five clubs could be worth 500 points or more. If North has one or two hearts it is very likely that South will be able to cash three heart tricks. Even so, hands of this nature were made to declare, not defend. And since it would be foolish to bid a non-vulnerable game when more points were available defending, it had better be a slam or nothing.
The question at hand was whether to bid the slam in spades or diamonds. There was a known eight card spade fit as well as a ten card diamond fit. The spade slam would yield the higher score, but just being in a successful slam should be worth a lot of matchpoints. The rationale for six diamonds is simple. For this bid to be successful, North need only hold the two pointed aces, but for six spades to make, North would also need the king and queen of spades, or a finesse for one of those cards. Doug made the correct choice as there is no play for six spades.
West is on lead and he can defeat the diamond slam. In fact, he can defeat it two tricks. A small spade will be ruffed by his partner. A small club returned to the king is the entry for another spade, ruffed for a great score. West knows that there are ten spades between his hand and South. But a spade lead is such a shot in the dark that I doubt anyone would come up with it unless there was a "Lightner" double by East. This double, by agreement, asks partner to make an unusual opening lead. In the actual auction, it would not be clear whether the unusual suit was spades or hearts. The correct lead, given all of the variables, is the king of clubs. If this holds, West will still be on lead and with three spades in dummy, should be able to figure out that a spade switch is correct for down one.
Our actual West led the deuce of clubs and declarers losing spades were eventually discarded on good hearts. Making six diamonds was a near top score which helped the Beckers to a 68% game (212) in a tough seventeen table section.