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Assume you're in six clubs and West leads a heart. If you were a relative beginner, you might estimate your chances of making the slam at 50%. You would reason that there was a 50-50 chance that West was dealt the king of diamonds, in which case finessing dummy's queen would land the slam half the time.
But if you were a more experienced player, you would view your chances much more optimistically; in fact, you might even raise them to about 90%. You'd be aware of other possibilities beyond relying solely on finding West with the king of diamonds.
You'd win the heart lead with the ace, draw two rounds of trump, play a spade to the king and ruff a heart. You'd then lead a spade to the ace and ruff a spade, hoping the opposing spades were divided 3-3. But you wouldn't be overly concerned if they weren't, because, after East-West had both followed suit to the A-K of spades, not even an earthquake could stop the slam.
In the actual case, after ruffing the third spade, you would lead a diamond toward the A-Q-9. If West followed low, you'd finesse the nine, compelling East to win and make a losing return. A spade return would establish dummy's last spade; a heart would allow you to discard a diamond as you ruffed in dummy; and a diamond would go right into dummy's A-Q.
Note that West could not foil you by playing the jack on the diamond lead toward dummy. In that case, you would cover the jack with the queen, and East would find himself in the same hopeless position.
Tomorrow: Resisting an automatic impulse,