Bjorn Borg said, “To win the last point in a grand slam tournament, that’s the most beautiful and most satisfying feeling you can get as a tennis player.”

Many bridge players get nervous when contemplating a slam. But often playing in one is straightforward because you cannot afford (m)any losers.

The main keys for a good slam are fit and controls. To make a grand slam with no fit, you will need most of the 40 high-card points. But with a good fit – or, even better, a double fit – you will win more tricks than your combined point-count would suggest. Also, you must know that the opponents cannot immediately defeat your contract.

How do you uncover a double fit? By bidding carefully.

What about controls? With (Roman Key Card) Blackwood, often supplemented by control-bidding.

In today’s deal, after South’s one-spade response is raised, he immediately thinks about a slam. But the diamond king is a big card. He can find out if partner holds it by rebidding three diamonds. North will think this is a help-suit game-try, and if he has the diamond king, he will probably jump to four spades; but without that card, he will settle for three spades. Here, after hearing four spades, South uses RKCB to learn that North has the spade king and club ace, but not the spade queen.

Against six spades, West leads the heart queen. South wins with his ace, draws two rounds of trumps, cashes the diamond king, plays a diamond to his ace, and continues with the diamond queen, discarding dummy’s heart loser. Then he can claim, conceding one trump trick.