When you are playing in a trump suit you should first count your possible losers.
On this hand you have 2 or 3 possible losers in spades the King, Jack and Nine.
You also have 1 heart loser the Ace.
One possible diamond loser the Q.
Along with one club loser the K.
That adds up to 5 or 6 possible losers and you can only afford 3 losers.
We should now look at where and how we can reduce these possible losers.
Lets look at Spades - a finesse may well hold losers to just one.
Hearts, there is nothing you can do.
Diamonds, there is a finesse possibility, or perhaps a better option discard a loser on the 3rd heart.
Clubs, there is a finesse position.
Problem: entries to East hand is only the ♠A. So finesses are probably not possible except once.
Solution: We will rely on 1 finesse in spades and throwing a losing diamond on the winning heart.
Losers should then be 1♠, 1♥ and 1♣.
We should all know by now that the way to finesse the spade suit is to play the winning honour first in the hand in which we do not have a finesse position. So first we will play a low spade to the Ace with the intention on playing a low spade back to the ♠10.
When North plays the king, declarershould play South for the remaining spades and lead a spade back and finessethe 8 if South plays the 7.
Next play on hearts and discard adiamond on the 3rd heart, followed by {A, {K and a diamond ruff.
Next comes another spade, finessingthe 10 when East plays the 9 (it does nothelp East to play a higher card at any stage).
Draw East's last trump. Making 11tricks.
(An initial club lead gives declarer 12tricks: win the club, spade to ace, spade finesse, heart to the jack, discard a diamond later on the 3rd round of hearts, andruff a diamond to reach dummy for the 2nd spade finesse). |