Dealer South Both Vul.

                                    ♠          A 10 5

                                    ♥          K Q 7 4

                                    ♦          K J 9 5

                                    ♣         9 2

            ♠          K                                             ♠          J 4 3 2

            ♥          A J 6 5 2                                ♥          8 3

            ♦          6 2                                          ♦          Q 7 3

            ♣         A J 10 7 3                              ♣         Q 8 6 5

                                    ♠          Q 9 8 7 6

                                    ♥          10 9

                                    ♦          A 10 8 4

                                    ♣         K 4

Jacqui Tobias, my partner in the recent Corwen trophy  timed the hand to perfection

With West bidding and East passing, she decided that West is more likely to hold  the Spade king.

After winning the first trick she played a spade towards dummy ready to insert the Ten and got lovely surprize when King fell and  she now played dummy’s Spade Ace. She continued with the Ten to keep in the right hand for a finesse and then a further finesse against East and finished drawing trumps in four rounds.

Having drawn trumps she was able to take the marked finesse in Hearts up to dummy’s Ace which West ducked. After winning, she came back to hand via a Diamond in order to take a second Herat finesse. What could West do? He took his Ace and merely cashed a top Club and Jacqui had made 11 tricks :-

5 trumps. 4 diamonds 2 Hearts

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