This last week saw the two-session Junior Open Teams event for players with less than 100 Masterpoints and there were six teams entered. At the time of writing this column only the first session has been completed and the team of Lorna Anderson-Margaret Kirk-Geoff Bell -Kath Bell have started impressively with 5 wins out of five and a total of 73 Victory Points. They are, however, nowhere near home and dry as behind them with 63 VPs are Janine Lines Shirley Higgins Jessica Cox Betty Hutchings and two other teams with 52 VPs and 49 VPs respectively, so it is still all to play for! Full results in next week’s column.This week’s hand should appeal to those playing in this event as it is a situation that turns up frequently, and even though it is an elimination play it is really very simple …the key to these plays is simply to understand the concept of the ‘ruff and discard’ , and then make it work for you .Board 3. E/W Vul. Dealer South.S-KQJ10H-85D-KQ5C-865S-642 S-3H-A107 H-K432D-J1043 D-987C-QJ10 C-9742S-A987H-Q96D-A62C-AK3South opened 1NT after which North bid 2-C (Stayman) and when South bid 2-S, North raised to the 4-S game … 3NT is in fact much easier, as is often the case with these shapeless wonders , but declarer was faced with making ten tricks in spades.West led the queen of clubs … declarer, a new player, won the Ace, drew trumps and took stock. He has an unavoidable club loser and two or three heart losers so he had to try and reduce the three to two! Deciding to play East for the ten of hearts he led a low heart to his 9 … when this lost to the ten the defence ended up with three heart tricks and a club to defeat the contract .Declarer could do much much better ... if he appreciated two things first that the club loser is totally unavoidable and secondly that if the opponents ever led hearts first, they can never take three heart tricks. Now the hand becomes easy !Win the opening lead, draw trumps, cash the three diamonds ( essential ) and now play Ace and another club giving the opponents their certain trick . This is now the hand :S-JH-J85D-NoneC-NoneS-None S-NoneH-A107 H-K43D-J D-NoneC-None C-9S-7H-Q96D-NoneC-NoneWest is stuck if he leads a heart declarer’s problems are over as the defence can only take two heart tricks if he leads a diamond declarer can ruff in one hand and discard a heart from the other , again leaving only two heart losers!Not really that difficult is it?