As a matter of course you should hold up the first Diamond lead to try and cut communications between East and West.

You then hope that the player with the long Diamonds doesn’t have the club Ace.

After taking the second trick you now set about the Club suit relieved to see a) that East has the missing Ace and b) East has no more Diamonds.

Now you can wrap up 11 tricks by way of 4 Spades, 3 Hearts, 1 Diamond and 3 Clubs

For those of you who like number Rules, then the RULE of SEVEN would NOT serve you well here. When the opposition leads their strong suit (Diamonds) Count the number of Diamonds between your hand and dummy and take the total away from SEVEN and that tells you how many times to hold up to cut communications. So here its 7 – 7  = 0 so here you would not hold up, so the Rule of seven would be fatal here.

 However we know that if we hold up just one round we cut West off from East who cannot possibly have more than 2 Diamonds, assuming West led from his longest suit (at least 4)

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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