BRIDGE MASTERCLASS

You are South, declarer in 4♠, and West leads ♣Q. Plan the play.

Although you have the values for game, your playing strength is not too good; your intermediate cards are very poor, and a contract in No trumps would have been doomed.

Nevertheless, you have a good chance of making the spade game, provided that trumps break 3-2.

You win the lead in dummy and make the key play of immediately ducking a round of trumps.

It doesn’t matter which opponent gains the lead, because you will be able to win the return and play ♠A, noting happily that both opponents follow.

the rest is easy — you ruff two clubs in dummy and concede a further trump and a diamond.

the key play which you made was to keep control of the trump suit, thus preventing the opponents from winning the second round and playing a third round, which would remove one of your necessary ruffs.