BRIDGE MASTERCLASS

South plays in 6Nt and West leads ♠ Q, on which East discards a club. how do you play? MANY readers will have solved this already from the helpful clues I gave yesterday. The solution is that you can endplay West in Spades for your 12th trick. However, to achieve this, you must be careful to unblock dummy’s suit. If you thoughtlessly played low to the first trick before making your first play, you will have gone down.

Win the lead, unblocking ♠ 9, then cash all your winners outside of spades, finishing in hand. You have ♠ K76 remaining and, when you lead low towards dummy’s ♠ 8, West is endplayed. He will have to win and lead away from ♠ 10 5 (to your K7).

Note that, if dummy’s ♠ 9 was still there, West could lead a low spade, and you’d be locked in dummy to concede the last trick to east. You must also remember, of course, to unblock 8!