Jolly by Foxymoron

 The expression "jolly" meaning "favourite" seems to come from horse-racing, from the 19th century and from the phrase "jolly old favourite" meaning  the most likely horse to win. Perhaps using jolly for emphasis as in "jolly good show". In two-selection events, the jolly will be "odds-on". In bridge the contract is a jolly when it is a favourite to succeed; in other words, odds-on. 

Richard Creamer and John Pemberton were jolly after they bid the only slam to make on the following hand tonight, which was the highlight in their otherwise very average evening:

The auction was short and sweet. Once East learned of the four hearts opposite, shown by the negative double, he didn't need much for slam and just punted it on his second round. The expression "short and sweet" was already proverbial in 1539, when it appeared in Richard Taverner's translation of Erasmus's Adagia. Over the years it was occasionally amplified, as in James Kelly's Scottish Proverbs (1721): "Better short and sweet than long and lax."

Slam is around even money, and illustrates the principle of restricted choice quite well. If the defence leads a spade, you will win and now have to broach the trumps. There is little to go on but South, who overcalled, rates to have more spades than his partner so fewer hearts and you should start with a heart to the king. Now, if nothing interesting pops up, you just have to hope they are 2-2 which will occur about 40% of the time. But you also have the extra chance that South has a singleton queen or jack of hearts. Then you will run the ten of hearts on the second round. Unfortunately you will lose to QJ doubleton, but you will pick up singleton queen or singleton jack with South. Overall your chances of success, a priori, are around 46%, Does that mean you don't want to be there? Not at all! Consider the auction. North-South have 11 spades between them and yet only competed to 3S. They are unlikely to have singletons or voids, which means that the chance of 2-2 hearts has gone up dramatically. Not to 100% as South could have a small singleton heart for example, but to somewhere around 75%.

This makes the slam a big jolly! If all your contracts are odds-on you will not go far wrong.