Source: Canberra Summer Festival of Bridge Bulletins
In this auction, you were using basic methods rather than four-level transfers and so arrived in the second-best contract. Three notrump would have been easy, but you have to make ten tricks in spades. West leads the five of hearts. You play the jack of hearts from dummy. East takes this with the queen and exits with a trump, West following. What is your plan to make a tenth trick?
The tenth trick can only come from diamonds and that has to be done without allowing West to gain the lead to play a club when the full deal is:
On this layout, if West gains the lead in diamonds he will shift to clubs and your contract will fail. The way to prevent West ever winning a diamond trick is to win the trump shift in dummy and then lead the king of hearts. East will cover this with the ace and you will discard a diamond from hand.
When East plays another trump and you will win this in hand. Once both defenders follow to the ace and king of diamonds, you will establish the suit with a ruff. Next, you will cross to dummy with a trump and discard two clubs on the long diamonds.
You might like to consider how you would play four spades on the given deal on a club lead. East will take two tricks in the suit and exit with a third round of clubs. After discarding a diamond from dummy on the third club, you will draw trumps and play the two top diamonds to remove East’s cards in that suit. A heart to the jack then endplays East, who will have only hearts left in his hand. No matter whether he exits with the ace of hearts or a low heart, you will make a
trick with dummy’s king of hearts and discard your diamond loser on it.