Dealer South Both Vul

                                    ♠          A 6 3

                                    ♥          K J 8 6 4

                                    ♦          J 6 2

                                    ♣         K 10

            ♠          8 5                                           ♠          4 2

            ♥          A 5 3 2                                    ♥          7

            ♦          K 10 9                                     ♦          Q 8 7 4 3

            ♣         A J 5 3                                    ♣         9 8 7 6 4

                                    ♠          K Q J 10 9 7

                                    ♥          Q 10 9

                                    ♦          A 5

                                    ♣         Q 2

When I was playing West on this hand all I had to do was listen to the auction to get the right defence and not because I had somehow seen my partner’s hand J

North had replied 2© to the 1ª opener promising 5 and South has supported showing 3 and now they ended up in 4ª. If declarer has three Hearts and dummy has five Hearts and I have 4 Hearts it is not too difficult to work out that partner has either a singleton or none. With this information at my fingertips I now led the Heart Ace followed by the ©2 (suit preference signal for a club return) As expected partner trumped the second round, played back a club and I gave him a second ruff. After the dust had settled we had taken the first four tricks and taken the  contract one off.

When checking the results afterwards most had made it as declarer had drawn trumps and most Wests presumably made a passive lead of a trump because they were once told not to lead unsupported Aces or away from an honours so on this hand all that is left is a trump. Perhaps those same people should have listened when the bridge teacher told them to listen to the auction before making their lead……………….

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