On this hand from a recent Crockfords anger took over when I wasn’t in Game and I then proceeded to only make 8 tricks when I didn’t notice West following to the second round of Spades. He threw a Black card and I thought it was another spade not expecting the suit to break  5:1.

Now lets start again and assume you are in Game– you have an initial count of 3 Spade winners, 2 Heart winners and 1 Club winner. – 6 winners needing three more.

 If the clubs break kindly then you will establish 2 further clubs and if Spades break 3:3 this will be a ninth trick. Also you can always fall back on the Diamond finesse.

 Bearing all this in mind, as a matter of course, you should hold up on the first round of Hearts. A general guideline is that if you have two stoppers and need to give up the lead twice its best to hold up once.

 So you hold up the first round and take the second Heart trick with your Ace. You now cash the Club Ace please to see the Jack fall. You now play a second club up towards dummy’s remaining Q10 holding which East takes with the King.

East now plays another Heart to dummy’s lone King. You now test the Spades and when the suit breaks badly you now take the Diamond finesse which wins (East has the missing Ace). NB If East takes his Ace, because you held up the Hearts he is unable to play a Heart over to his partner since he is now cut off from his partner J).

You now make 3 Spades, 2 Hearts, 1 Diamond and 3 clubs.

You can also watch the following movie to see how the hand pans out. To view this programme you will need  to download htttp://www.haroldschogger.com/bridgevu.setup

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

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