Dealer East Both Vul.

                                    ♠          10 8 2

                                    ♥          9 5 4

                                    ♦          A K 9 7 5 2

                                    ♣          10

            ♠          9 4                                            ♠          Q 5 3

            ♥          A K 10 6 3                                 ♥          8 7

            ♦          10                                            ♦          J 6 4 3

            ♣          K J 8 5 3                                   ♣          A 9 6 2

                                    ♠          A K J 7 6

                                    ♥          Q J 2

                                    ♦          Q 8

                                    ♣          Q 7 4

Having got a non-club lead now you stand chances, especially when your Jack holds the first trick and East does not have a top Heart honour.

If the Diamonds break, then you have your contract in the bag- 6 Diamonds 2 top Spades and the Heart. If the Diamonds do not break favourably then you will need a back up plan and need either the Spade queen to be a singleton somewhere or the finesse to work.

With all this in mind at trick two, cash the top Spade just in case somebody has the Queen singleton. No Queen appears so back to the Diamonds. After playing second Diamond to dummy’s King the bad break is revealed and now everything rests on the Spade finesse. Cash the other top Diamond and take the spade finesse and draw a deep breath.

The Spade finesse works and now you are home by way of 5 Spades, 1 Heart and 3 Diamonds.

Perhaps the opponents could have defended better and led a top Heart and maybe West will then switch to a club.

Had you played 4ª you certainly should go down with a Heart lead resulting  to 2 Heart tricks a Heart ruff and 1 club to the opponents.

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