Key Card Blackwood told South that the queen of hearts was missing, but that didn’t deter him from bidding a grand slam. His bid of seven clubs gave partner a choice between playing in hearts or clubs. Holding weak hearts and the golden queen of clubs, North happily passed in seven clubs.
South won the opening spade lead with dummy’s ace and cashed the queen of clubs. Many players at this point would have crossed to their hand with either the king of diamonds or the ace of hearts.
This South made the clairvoyant play of cashing the king of spades, discarding a heart, and then ruffing a spade. Seeing East show out on the third spade made a huge difference in the rest of the play.
Two high trumps showed that West had started with three clubs along with his seven spades. When West discarded on the second high heart, that meant that he had started with exactly two diamonds. East was known to hold the queen of hearts, and he would have to keep it to protect against South’s three of hearts. All declarer needed to do was run all of his clubs and keep a lookout for the queen of hearts. He came down to a three-card ending, East had discarded down to two diamonds in order to keep his queen of hearts. The king of diamonds and a diamond to the ace was sure to drop the queen, and the jack gave South his 13th trick. Well done!
