From                   11th October, Board 9

                                          Difficulty            * * *

                                          Dlr North           E-W Vul

East leads the Ten of Spades, and, although there are few immediate losers, there is also a shortage of tricks.

If you can guess the Q♦ correctly, you can score 4 trumps and a ruff, plus two Spades and a Heart ... if the K♥ is also on-side, you'll have 9 tricks.  Is that the best you can do?

SOLUTION

Rather than rely on a successful trump guess and a Heart finesse, we would do better to go for Club ruffs in our hand.  But that requires careful husbandry of our entries.  Win the opening lead with the King, and lose a Club.  Back comes a Spade to Dummy's Ace, Club ruff, Spade ruff and a Club ruffed with the Ten.  If this is not overruffed, Declarer is home ... she has already scored 6 tricks, and in trumps she has K6 opposite AJ9 remaining ... provided that she sits back and never plays on trumps herself, that will be good for 3 more tricks.

On the actual deal, after Declarer ruffs the third round of Clubs with the Ten, she plays A♥ and a Heart to East's Jack.  East does best to play a high Heart, but Dummy refuses to ruff, pitching a Club instead.    Now, another round of Hearts, Dummy pitches a Club, and West is forced to ruff.  With just 3 trumps left, he is now end-played in trumps.

Suppose that East overruffs the 3rd round of Hearts and returns a trump.  All is not lost!  Win the trump return in Dummy, ruff a Club with the King (the only remaining trump in Declarer's hand), and it's still 9 tricks.

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