No Trump Slams --I

A trump suit is like marriage. We expect it to work for us, it should do so the great majority of the time we choose with care, and we'll just have to be strong enough to accept those times it doesn't for unforeseen reasons. But work against us it most assuredly can do, and we should guard against a commitment when there is ample evidence we can do better without, lest the choice we freely made with open eyes winds up being our undoing.
One type of hand where your freely chosen trump suit can work against you is the slam -- those powerful hands where you hold just about all the tickets and need only get the lead to run your 12 or 13 winners. On these hands above all others, we don't want to let our potential for profit be turned into a negative score through carelessness. And one way to help our cause is to look to no trump on these big hands.
If conditions are right, if you have all suits securely stopped with high cards and can just about count your 12 or 13 winners, no trump will quite often serve you much better than any trump suit. This will not be in spite of a long, dominant suit (as opposed to a balanced fit), but because of it.
However, lest there be any misunderstanding here, and lest any reader get a little too enthusiastic about no trump slams, let me take a few paragraphs to acknowledge the great value of trump slams. For whatever the advantages of no trump, a significant portion of your slams will make only in a trump suit, and there is no intention to obscure that simple fact here.
Here are some of the advantages to naming a trump suit:
(1) The first one fairly leaps to mind: because trump will often be your only stopper against the run of a suit:

K Q 8 7 6
A K 8 4
5
K Q 6

You open a spade and your partner bids 3 spades (13 to 15 points). This is a good hand for Blackwood, for with a singleton and kings, it will tell you what you want to know. The response to four no tells you your side is missing an ace. Not to worry. You don't care if it's the spade, diamond or club. Well, you'd like it to be the diamond ace, since you could have two club losers if missing the club ace, but you figure you'll worry about that when dummy comes down.
In any event, you know you have to play in spades so as to give you control of diamonds. It may be that missing the ace of diamonds, you have the K Q, or missing one of the black aces, your partner has A K of diamonds, making no trump feasible. But you can't take that chance. There's no reason to take that chance when you can see you'll have second-round control of diamonds in a spade contract and only may have second round control in no trump.
(2) Even with all four suits stopped, a trump suit will often serve you better by providing several winners that wouldn't be available in no trump. This will be especially true on a balanced fit.

K
Q 9 5
9 8 6 4
A K Q 7 4
South West North East
Q 10 9 7 5 1 Pass 1 (!) Pass
A 1 Pass 3 NT Pass
A K Q 7 5 3 4 Pass 6 All pass
5

After the hand, North asked,"Can you make 6 no?" and then answered his own question, "No, not on a heart lead." But South pointed out that you can't make 6 no with or without a heart opening lead, for you not only need a trump suit for second round control of hearts, but also for a 12th winner by way of ruffing a spade, giving declarer seven diamond winners, 3 clubs, a heart and a spade. In no trump, there would be a possible black-suit squeeze without a heart lead; but that's all academic when you don't want to be in no trump in the first place.

(3) There are a number of other things a trump suit will do for you, though they won't be so obvious from the bidding, and this is a catch-all category. There are ruffing finesses and trump squeezes, and trump will often let you set up a suit you couldn't in no trump:

A K 8 7 5
6

Such a suit can produce a third winner on a 4-3 split of the outstanding cards. It can do so in either no trump or a suit contract, but in no trump, you would obviously have to lose the lead twice to develop that third winner, which isn't what you're looking for in slam. In a trump contract, assuming sufficient trump and entries, you can ruff out the third and fourth rounds of spades and produce a third winner without losing your slam.

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

In no trump, there would be 12 winners off the top. There is a squeeze for a 13th winner, should East have no more than 2 cards in each major (i.e., West is protecting each major). But you wouldn't want to put your money on it. There's a good play for 7 clubs, however, the 13th winner to come from setting up the heart suit, which you'll be able to do if it's split no worse than 4-2. (Clubs can't be worse than 4-1 if hearts are 4-2). On the last heart, you would sluff a low spade and claim.

The above qualifications aside, however,and remembering that the catchall third category may not have covered every remaining situation, on those occasions where you are loaded for bear across the board, no trump will often serve you best, even when you have a long, a very long, dominant suit. The positive reasons for preferring no trump in such situations will be given in Parts II and III.