Good slam / bad slam

Posted by Warren Lazer on Monday, 14 July 2014 at 23:13

I seem to remember being told that any slam that makes is a good slam.  I was kibitzing a round 2 Women's match when I saw the following unfold.

4♦ and 5♣ were multi cues and I dare say declarer was probably not too happy when dummy was tabled.  The play was rather quick.  The diamond lead was won with with the ace.  A spade to the ace picked up South's singleton king and then the trump 9 was run to pick up North's jack.  All the trumps were drawn and dummy re-entered in hearts to take the club finesse.  After 2 more rounds of hearts, declarer's 9 was a winner and she had 12 tricks. 

So what were the odds for this slam?

Spades needed to be 4-1 with South having the singleton king: 28% x 1/5 x 1/2 = 2.8%

The club queen needed to be with North: 50%

The hearts had to break 3-3; 36%

All up, that's somewhere in the region of 0.50%.  So was this a good slam?  I guess it depends on whether you're a Victorian or a West Australian!