The hand above comes from a recent Hubert Phillips match and unfortunately we pushed them into a 5§ contract that they were probably not going to bid. 

Could our esteemed opponent now make the contract?

Initially you only have a count 5 winners ie 2 Hearts, 1 Diamond and 2 clubs. The losers front is a little less depressing with only a total of three :- 1 Spade, 1 Heart and 1 possible Club.

The Ace of spades you cannot avoid and unless the opponents are stupid enough to chuck QJ10 on the first two top Hearts you cannot avoid the Heart loser either so how to play the clubs for NO LOSERS?

On the surface, it looks like a two way guess in Clubs where you can finesse either player for the missing Queen.

Our opponent was up to the task in hand and USED THE BIDDING to help him decide who was more likely to hold the Queen of Clubs. East had been bidding Strong by himself and it seems he doesn’t hold a lot of High Card Points so his bidding must be based on Shape and he now played East to be short in Clubs.

So after winning the second trick with the Spade King he cashed the King of clubs first and when East showed out was now able to finesse West for the missing Queen

When the hearts broke he was now able to claim his contract by way of 1 Spade. 2 Hearts 1 Diamond,6 Clubs and 1 established Heart, losing just one Heart and 1 Spade.

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 )