| West | North | East | South |
| 1♦ | Pass | 1♠ | |
| 2♥ | Dbl | Pass | 4NT |
| Pass | 5♣ | Pass | 6♠ |
| All Pass |
After partner opens the bidding and shows three-card spade support with his double of West’s 2♥ bid, you are quick to get to the good slam. West starts with the ♦Q. How are you going to get to 12 tricks on this deal?
Solution
After the opening lead was made, declarer paused to form a plan. He counted 11 top tricks on a reasonable trump division. One possibility was to try to set up a long diamond in dummy, which would likely require trumps to split 3-2 and diamonds 4-3. Declarer decided that a better shot was to ruff a heart high in dummy and finesse the ♠9 after doing so. In fact. this offers over twice the chance of making the contract compared to trying to set up diamonds.
At trick two, declarer led a low trump. When West discarded a heart, declarer had to reconsider his options. After winning the trick with the dummy’s queen of trumps, declarer played a heart to the ace, then cashed three rounds of clubs. After throwing a heart on the ace of diamonds, declarer ruffed a diamond low and exited with a heart. West won the trick with the ♥8 and exited with a low heart. As planned, declarer ruffed this with dummy’s ♠K, East under-ruffing by force. In the three-card ending, declarer had the ♠A J 9 . Any lead from dummy ensured that he scored all of the remaining tricks. Declarer made five trumps, the ♥A, a heart ruff, two diamonds and three clubs for a total of 12 tricks. The full deal: