The Manchester/Lancashire team of John Holland, Alan Mould, Jackie Pye and Jeff Smith lost the Hubert Phillips final last month by the very small margin of 430 aggregate points.  Here is a dummy play problem from the match.  You arrive in four spades (your three spade bid is forcing) and receive the lead of the queen of clubs.  How do you plan the play?

Solution

It is almost certain that West has the heart ace for his take out double.  With two heart losers and a trump to lose you must get rid of your diamond loser before the defence switch to diamonds.

John Holland won the lead in hand and played a heart to West's queen.  A second club was won in dummy and another heart lost to the ace.  A further club was ruffed in hand, John now cashed the spade ace, to cater for West having a singleton king and then crossed to dummy with a top diamond, took a diamond pitch on the heart jack and played a spade.  He ducked this to West's doubleton king and there were no further problems in the play.