Dealer East  Both Vul.

                                    ♠          8 2

                                    ♥          9 8 6 2

                                    ♦          9 3

                                    ♣          K J 10 3 2

            ♠          7 4 3                             ♠          A J 6

            ♥          A Q 4                            ♥          K 10 5 3

            ♦          A Q 7 6                         ♦          J 10 4 2

            ♣          9 6 5                             ♣          8 7

                                    ♠          K Q 10 9 5

                                    ♥          J 7

                                    ♦          K 8 5

                                    ♣          A Q 4

When I played this hand Bridge Bae Online I was South and East won the first trick and merely played another Spade without any more thought and I then proceeded to make the remaining Spades (4tricks) and 5 more clubs.

Now let’s reboot.

After winning the first trick East must try and get as many defensive tricks as possible and playing back another Spade is “lazy”.

He must reason that declarer will now get tricks from trumps and all those lovely clubs on the table  and if a finesse needs to be taken by declarer in clubs it is sure to be successful. Hhe has to switch to a red suit NOW and try and quickly get 5 tricks.

He is on lead at trick 2 and needs to do something in Diamonds, maybe finessing some holding in declarer’s hand. So he should play the Jack (top of his sequence). Declarer tries the King to no avail and now plays back a Diamond  to you known Jack. Now all you need to do is switch to a low Heart and maybe do another finesse against declarer. Partner wins the trick with the Queen and plays another top Heart. You and your partner have now taken the first five tricks and will get an above average score for keeping the contract to 8 tricks and not letting any unnecessary overtricks through.

You can also play out the following hand  to see how the hand pans out. (You need bridgvu.exe programme  and it is available free from   http://www.haroldschogger.videoes.html or BridgeBase programme on your machine already to view it )

alternatively watch the film of the hand being played out by going to www.haroldschogger.com/movies2.htm