Dealer West Love All

                                    ♠          K 9 8 7 5

                                    ♥          A K 7

                                    ♦          K 8

                                    ♣          K Q 3

            ♠          A 10 6 4                                    ♠          Q 3 2

            ♥          10                                            ♥          8 6 2

            ♦          Q J 10 4 3                                 ♦          7 6 5

            ♣          7 6 4                                         ♣          J 10 8 5

                                    ♠          J

                                    ♥          Q J 9 5 4 3

                                    ♦          A 9 2

                                    ♣          A 9 2

4NT is RKC Blackwood and 5ª shows 2 key cards and Queen of Trumps

After the lead you can “easily” count 11 winners without doing any work at all ie  6 trumps, 2 Diamonds and 3 clubs.

As long as you trump a diamond in the short hand that will bring the total to 12 (your contract) But can you beat all the other NS’s and make all 13 tricks.

Well not legitimately because they have the Spade Ace. However if you play a Spade early and play against an opponent who always plays low in second seat you might get away with leading your Spade Jack and going up with dummy’s King. However, you must do this early before the opponents get their signals going and realise what you are trying to do.

Therefore, win first trick in hand and play that Spade Jack giving the illusion that you are finessing against a possible Queen

West kindly plays low and you now play the King from dummy. Yes, it wins and now you have established the overtrick. Don’t forget to ruff a Diamond before drawing all the trumps and now you bring home all 13 tricks . You made 1 Spade, 6 trumps 2 Diamonds 3 Clubs and 1 Diamond ruffed in the short hand.

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