The Balanced Suit V

	8 7 5
	A K Q 7 4
	10 7 4
	10 5
J 10 9		6 2
10		9 5 3
K Q 9 6 5		J 8
A Q 9 7		K J 6 4 3 2
	A K Q 4 3
	J 8 6 2
	A 3 2
	8

You've got slam in hearts but not in spades. Both suits are solid and can serve well as trump as far as controlling the hand is concerned. But the more unbalaced spades work better on the side than the balanced hearts, so that you can sluff two diamonds on the 5-3 spades, but only one on the 5-4 hearts, holding you to eleven top tricks in a spade contract.

In hearts, you sluff two diamonds in the North hand on the long spades, lose a club, and ruff a club in the short heart hand. That's your twelfth trick. In a spade contract, you can throw the same two diamonds on the long spades, but it doesn't do you any good. You can pitch one diamond on the long hearts, but you'll always lose a diamond in addition to the club.

A little surprisingly, no one in an OKbridge tournament got to slam here. After all the wild slam bidding I've seen on OKbridge, I would have thought a few would be there. (A couple of pairs got all the way to 2 spades!). I've seen a jump from a two club opener to 7 (making in a few cases though missing an ace which was indeed in the opening leader's hand!), a 30-point slam -- 15 hcp's opposite 15 -- that makes only on a two-way finesse for a queen and a double hook in hearts that also depends on good spots, and a 25-hcp heart slam that makes because both hearts and clubs are 3-2 and nothing is wasted. All had a fair sprinkling of ventursome slam bidders.

But this solidity, this lay-down slam, as soon spades are known to split favorably -- it does depend on 3-2 spades -- didn't attract anyone. Still, the ones in hearts were making 12 tricks for a better score than those in spades, some of whom, on finding a spade fit, didn't explore for a better. And so it goes.