This hand came up on OKBridge on 4/15/06 -- Partner has made an aggressive 3♣ call -- I expected an A, or two Ks, or even a trick and a side entry, so I bid a slam. On paper, a zero percent chance, but I stopped crying in my beer after LHO led a low diamond and the Q♦ held!-- it's normal for good opponents to lead away from a Q or a K against a small slam -- but it was unfortunate here.

Now I turn over the reins to you: Can you make the best of your gift? With no entries to the dummy, you could lead a club up and hope LHO has the A and ducks, and if that doesn't work then you might drop the Q♥ doubleton. A hopeful line, but you shouldn't commit yet -- you can frequently improve on hope by playing your long suit looking for information. When you play off four rounds of trump, all follow for two, then LHO pitches two low diamonds, and RHO the 2♣ and 8♣. Since your opponents play upside down carding, the steal-a-club line looks like a loser. Let's see what two more rounds discovers: LHO, A high club, and the T♥; RHO, a low heart and the J♣.

They're playing 3rd/5th leads, so the 2♦ lead should indicate that diamonds are split 5-3. Can you find the winning without looking at the E/W hands?

If you read the hand correctly, you know RHO's hand. He's baring his A♣ because he has to protect his Q♥ of hearts. You can't throw him in yet as he's keeping the J♦ as an out card, which he will return if you play a club now, and take his heart trick at trick 13. Although it feels like operating without a net sometimes, you need to play your last trump to force him to part with his out card.

When you play the last trump, pitching the Q♣, you catch RHO in a strip squeeze, as he has to pitch his J of diamonds. . Now you can throw him in with the club to lead away from his Q♥. Making 6 -- and unfortunately partner thinks she bid it well!

Lessons:

• A positive response is traditionally a 5 card suit with 2 of the top 3 honors, and 8+ points. If we used control responses, we could have easily avoided this slam. Without that tool, I recommend a positive response include 2 controls (A=2, K=1). Stray Qs and Js are often insufficient for slam purposes.

• Carefully consider if you can get useful information from playing out your long suit; sometimes the opponents are helped much more than you are. Here, if LHO encouraged in clubs, you should immediately try to steal a club before RHO could give count with his discards.

• You don't have to know all the fancy names and rules to make squeezes and endplays. The key is visualizing an opponents hand and figuring out his possible discards.

• While you construct the hand, factor in the lead -- here we know LHO doesn't have both the Q♥ and the A♣ along with the K♦, with that hand she would have led a trump.