A10863
                                          QJ93
                                          J4
                                          62
            QJ72                                                K95
            754                                                  6
            9852                                                Q1073
            KQ                                                  J9864
                                         4
                                         AK1082
                                         AK6
                                         A1073
 

The contract is Six Hearts by South, with the 4 of hearts lead, East following suit.

Well what did you do?  Did you try and ruff out the spades, assuming they were 4-3?  If you did you would find that you run out of trumps in your hand and you are an entry short to get back to dummy........  It is that dratted trump lead.  Anything else and you simply give up a minor suit loser and cross ruff the hand out with your big trumps (best might be to play the AK of diamonds and then throw a club from dummy?). If you do that now, then a trump will come back and you are a trick short.  How do you combat this?  Have another look at the hand..... can you see a way with all hands visible?   The answer is to win in hand and lead a small diamond to the Jack, hoping that the hand with the queen of diamonds has only one trump - therefore being end-played at trick two!  When the hand winning the queen of diamonds cannot return a trump you can cross-ruff your hand at your leisure (throwing a club on the top diamond).  On the actual layout, you will succeed by playing AK and other diamond, throwing a club,  against me as  defender, but experts will jettison the Q or the 10 on at least the second round to avoid the end-play.

Good isn't it?

I am indebted to Malcolm Simpson for giving and testing me out on this hand - did you think I got it right?................  Did the Cap'n get it right I wonder?
 
 

Clive Keep October  2003