Dealer West Love All            ♠        K 7 6 2

                             ♥        Q

                             ♦        J 9 6

                             ♣       A K Q J 9

          ♠        10 5                       ♠        A Q 4 3

          ♥        A K J 9 5 4                  ♥        8 3

          ♦        8 5                        ♦        Q 7 4 3 2

          ♣       6 5 2                       ♣       10 4

                             ♠        J 9 8

                             ♥        10 7 6 2

                             ♦        A K 10

                             ♣       8 7 3

This hand comes from this year’s EBU Summer Meeting at Eastbourne and if EW are on the same wavelength they can take the first 8 tricks.

Firstly, when you lead from an AKJXXX holding with declarer having bid this suit what do you want to know? Presumably declarer has the Queen so partner will not be encouraging but it is useful to know how many partner has. Most experts now adopt Ace for Attitude and King For Count Leads (and remember it by two A sounds and 2 K/C sounds) so here you want to know the Count so you lead the King and partner Peters at trick 1 with the 8 showing 2 (or a singleton). Lets hope it’s a Doubleton.

You now need to get partner in so he can lead through declarer and you will successfully finesse declarer’s remaining ©10.

But how do you get to partner? Declarer has happily rebid 1NT suggesting a good Diamond stopper so it seems your only switch now will have to be to a Spade and you hit the Jackpot. Partner surrounds dummy’s King with AQ and he now wins the second and third tricks before switching back to Hearts and the defence has taken the first 8 tricks for a good match point score.

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