Dealer: North

Vuln: E/W

Once partner has made what is an "obviously" strong bold lead you need to be awake at trick 1. If you have two touching high honours when you defend and partner makes a bold lead like this you now need to play the JACK and this says either you have a singleton or you promise the card below it i.e. here the Ten. Here it must be the Ten with only 1 Diamond in the dummy. Partner is allowed to win the first trick and duly plays a low one back to your promised Ten and again declarer ducks in the hope of cutting communications between you and your partner. However when you play the third Diamond declarer wins and at tricks 1 and 2 you have UNBLOCKED those blocking cards i.e. the Jack and then Ten. Declarer tries establishing the club suit and when partner gets in he cashes two winning Diamonds, to defeat the contract by one.

When this hand was played against me my "esteemed" partner did not unblock the Jack and Ten of Diamonds and consequently the contract made. All I have to show for it is this hand of the week L