I think one of the main aspects of good defence is PATIENCE and that Aces do not disappear.

My esteemed American partner, Bill Hohauser, on this hand certainly showed his worth on this week's hand.

After winning the first trick with dummy's Ace declarer finessed the Spade and lost to my King. I played a second Club won by partner who played a third club won by declarer. At this stage we had only won two tricks. Dummy's 4th club had been set up and was potentially a winner there for declarer to dump his heart loser. My partner had other ideas. Declarer finished drawing trumps and then set about playing his King and Jack of Diamonds. My learned partner was having none of that and did not take his Diamond Ace until the third round. Now declarer could never got the dummy to dispose of that Heart loser and we eventually defeated the contract by one tricks taking 1 trick in each suit and not allowing declarer to get to dummy once the Club Ace had gone.

Retrospectively maybe declarer should have played low on the lead.

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