Ruffing
|  A K J 4 |
|  9 7 5 2 |
|  J |
|  A K J 10 |
| Q 8 7 |
|
10 9 6 5 2 |
| Q 8 3 |
|
K 6 |
| 9 5 3 |
|
10 8 7 6 4 |
| 7 5 4 3 | |
2 |
|
| 3 |
|
A J 10 4 | Contract: 6 hearts |
|
A K Q 2 |
|
Q 9 8 6 | Vul: N-S |
|
|
When my partner and I had just finished a diamond slam, that as I remember would have made in no trump also, in a Swiss Teams event, I mentioned that I'd toyed with the idea of no trump, but decided against it. A rather rude lady on my right scoffed at such a stupid thought for "a mere ten points". Wherein she was as wrong about my thinking as she was about the scoring.
Matchpoint scoring, yes, 10 points can mean a lot, as the previous hand shows, but in IMP scoring,10 points won't even show. The difference between a minor suit grand slam and no trump is 80 points, of course, but that was hardly my motivation. When you're going for over a thousand points, you want the safest denomination, certainly, and I have outlined in the three-part discussion of No trump slams, here, and here , and here, the four reasons why a no trump slam might work better. One was, to be sure, the advantage of that small differential in score, as the previous hand shows in spades. But that still leaves three reasons, one of which was that you avoid a quick ruff.
Here the ruff wouldn't be all that quick, nor of course is it certain that West would find a club opening lead. But if found, I can see no way declarer can avoid a defensive ruff. You can sluff a couple of clubs from the closed hand on a spade hook, but you're one shy. A little trickier line that might induce a defensive error would be to take the spade hook, cash the jack of diamonds, ruff a spade and play diamonds, sluffing clubs from dummy. On the fourth diamond, West can ruff high, ruff low or decline to ruff. The first and third choices would still leave the defense in control, but if West ruffs low, declarer overruffs, and now can draw all trump on two quick leads, and West would be a very unhappy camper.
A high ruff would allow declarer to sluff dummy's last club, but what of that? A club lead would allow East to ruff with the K for the second defensive trick. Sluffing off, particularly a spade, wouldn't leave declarer any better off. He has only hearts and clubs in the closed hand and no means of taking the necessary double finesse in hearts.
And that's why I might give consideration to a no trump slam over diamonds or hearts in a Swiss Teams event. It should be evident that 6 no is unbeatable here: four clubs, four diamonds, two hearts on the double finesse, and two spades, no finesse needed.
Incidentally, a recent variant of the scoring advantage occurred to me as I was writing. In a heart slam, missing the J on a 4-1 trump split, the contract could be made, but there was no chance for an overtrick. My partner and I were in no trump, which also should have been held to 12 tricks, but my LHO, with the jack of hearts and evidently thinking she had to protect clubs, where she held the top one, the queen, dummy showing the ten and her partner holding the jack, could have saved a trick by discarding the queen, discarded a heart and we had an overtrick.