Dealer North. Love All

                             ♠        A 4 3 2

                             ♥        8 7 2

                             ♦        A Q 10 9 2

                             ♣       10

          ♠        8 6                        ♠        Q J 10 7 5

          ♥        A Q 10 9 6                  ♥        J 3

          ♦        K 8 3                      ♦        6 5

          ♣       K 8 2                       ♣       7 6 4 3

                             ♠        K 9

                             ♥        K 5 4

                             ♦        J 7 4

                             ♣       A Q J 9 5

When this hand was played against me, declarer was more intent on finessing wherever he could rather than actually count his winners.

He won the first trick with the Heart king in hand and immediately finessed Diamonds which was successful. Now while he was in dummy he decided to take the Club finesse and when this failed and West got in, West cashed all his Heart winners to take the contract 1 off.

What went wrong?

After the Heart lead, you have an initial count  of 1 Heart winner, 2 top spade winners and 2 Minor Suit aces totalling 5 winners. You therefore need to generate 4 more tricks. Do you need both Minor Suit finesses to work? If the Diamond finesse works, that will generate 4 extra tricks. If the club finesse works you will only be able to generate one extra trick as you can only finesse the clubs once.

So with this in mind, after winning the first trick you play the Diamond Jack from hand finessing West for the missing King. When this is successful you run for home by cashing your Diamond winners and your other top tricks.

You make 2 Spades, 1 Heart, 5 Diamonds and 1 Club.