Plan your defence to 4♥  to get Maximum

Match Points

On our deal this weak in defence we are going to make 3 tricks, keeping declarer to his contract. where most tables will let declarer make 11.

West leads his singleton Club and after declarer wins the first trick in dummy now plays the Heart nine letting it run to West’s Queen.

 West needs to get a Club ruff if he has any chance of defeating the contract so he needs to get his partner in. His partner is known to hold 12-14 points from his opening bid of 1NT so his partner is probably holding Kings in at 3 suits so partner is likely to hold the Spade King.

With this in mind, at trick three, West should underlead from  his Spade holding  and play the 4. East duly obliges by winning the trick and fires back a Club which West is able to ruff. When West now tries to cash a second Spade, declarer ruffs and is able to make all the remaining tricks. However, holding the contract to 10 tricks was worth about 80% of the Match Points as most defenders let 11 tricks through.

 You can also view  watch the following movie to see how the hand pans out. (You need bridgvu.exe programme  or BridgeBase programme on your machine already to view it ) and it is available free from   http://www.haroldschogger.com/videos.htm

 alternatively watch the film www.haroldschogger.com/movies2.htm