14th October 2020

A deal from a Manchester online league match.
Dealer N Love All.

S AKQ9
H Q6532
D 6
C K106
   


   
S J532
H J10
D KJ974
C A8

South
West
North
East


1H Pass
1S Pass
3S Pass
4S Pass
Pass Pass

After a simple auction you play in four spades on the seven of clubs lead.
Trumps will break kindly, form a plan and then scroll down.




























You have three top losers and need to set up hearts to create enough tricks. 
At the table declarer drew three rounds of trumps and played a heart to the jack and king.
West returned a club taking an entry out to the hearts. 
Declarer now played another heart and East erred by taking the king and tried to cash the minor suit winners.  When the club was ruffed declarer still had a trump entry to dummy to cash the now good hearts.  If East had ducked the second heart there would not have been enough entries to dummy to set up and enjoy the heart suit.

It is better to start on hearts immediately.  You will need some reasonable breaks, but you will now have the entries to set up and cash the hearts.

The full deal was

Dealer North
S
AKQ9
   
Love All
H
Q6532
   
    D 6
   
    C K106
   
S
1064
    S
87
H
K97
    H
A84
D
Q5
    D
A10832
C
97532
    C
QJ4
    S
J532
   
    H
J10
   
    D
KJ974
   
    C
A8
   


Thanks to John Currie for this deal