Another STAC week at the Club and a lot of players will have collected more of those precious masterpoints which take them to the next level in the bridge hierarchy … always an exciting pursuit! Next week sees the Junior-Senior game on Tuesday, November 20 and I will provide results in next week’s column.This week’s hand is a good lesson in focus and timing ….all the successful declarer did was count to 12 , the number of tricks required to make his slam, and then find the best way to get there.Board 7. Game All. Dealer SouthS-QJ52D-6H-AK976C-QJ10S-6 S-9743D-KQ10854 D-J73H-Q103 H-8C-K54 C-9762S-AK108D-A92H-542C-A83WEST NORTH EAST SOUTH1NT2HDBL Pass 2S Pass 3H Pass 4CPass 4D Pass 4HPass 4NT Pass 5DPass 6S Pass PassPassThe bidding was aggressive, but good. After West’s overcall, North made a negative double (agree with your partner whether a double here is negative or penalties!) and then after a series of cuebids, North-south bid the spade slam.Now try the hand before you read on.After the opening lead declarer paused to make a plan always a good thing ...The bidding suggested that West had the Club king and if that was the case declarer had only eight top winners to make the hand he needed to add two more diamonds and two heart ruffs to get to 12 without touching the clubs. Now all that was needed was execution.Declarer won the heart, ruffed a heart with the trump 2 and now made the key play of giving up the certain diamond loser early by leading a low diamond from dummy! East won with the diamond 8 and switched to a Club but declarer already had his plan and spurned the finesse … he rose with the Ace of Clubs , ruffed his last heart with the trump Jack in case East was also out of hearts, drew four rounds of trumps and cashed four remaining diamonds for 12 tricks! Four trumps, four diamonds, two heart ruffs, the heart Ace and the Club Ace slam made!Not that difficult, but that club holding in dummy would have deflected many a declarer … but not this one Well done!