South knew there was potential for a grand slam, but he couldn’t think of a way to find out if North had the perfect cards for him. He settled for a small slam. Dummy did have a couple of very good cards but there was no entry to them. What to do? South won the opening heart lead with his ace and cashed the ace and king of spades, learning that he had a trump loser. He was about to cash the ace and king of diamonds, hoping for the queen to fall, when he saw an even better plan. South cashed the king of hearts, the ace of clubs, and the ace of diamonds, then exited with a spade to West’s queen. What could West do? Either a heart lead or a spade lead would put South in dummy and enable South to discard two diamonds. South made his slam after a lovely line of play. Well done! Note the importance of cashing the ace of diamonds. Had he failed to do that, West could have escaped by leading his singleton diamond. East can defend the position, provided he never discarded a diamond, by protecting his queen of diamonds and not playing it unless South plays the 10 of diamonds from dummy.