Dealer South Both Vul

                                    ♠          9 8 6

                                    ♥          8

                                    ♦          9 6 4

                                    ♣         A K Q 10 6 4

            ♠          K Q J 10 7 5                          ♠          4 2

            ♥          4                                              ♥          J 10 7 6 5 3

            ♦          K 8 7 5 2                                ♦          J 10

            ♣         2                                              ♣         7 5 3

                                    ♠          A 3

                                    ♥          A K Q 9 2

                                    ♦          A Q 3

                                    ♣         J 9 8

Our hand this week comes from the EBU Summer congress and with the North hand wanting to protect any Spade holding in partner’s hand I jumped to 6NT rather than bidding 6§.

With the Spade King lead you take stock. Surely, West must have the Diamond King apart from some solid brilliant spade suit so it seems the only way to bring home this precarious contract is with an endplay against West so he will have to lead from his probable Diamond King at the end.

After winning the Spade lead, declarer tested the Hearts first to discover that West had  started  with a singleton. He then play two Clubs and discovered West  had a singleton in this suit too.

He now knew that West’s shape was 6-1-5-1. He cashed the remaining top Heart in his hand before cashing 4 more clubs ending in dummy. West had to come down to two Diamonds and 1 winning Spade and at this point my partner played a Spade and West had no choice but to win and lead away from his K8 of Diamonds.

(NB If West came down to two winning Spades then declarer would have of course cashed the Diamond Ace pinning the now singleton king)

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

alternatively watch the film www.haroldschogger.com/movies2.htm