One of the best pieces of advice in declarer play is: “When everything looks rosy look hard for what can go wrong, and when things look dire just assume that everything is sitting perfectly and play the hand based on that.”

Today’s hand definitely fits into the second category! See Figure 1.

South opened one spade, North had to bid two spades with five points and spade support, and South jumped to four spades, in my opinion an overbid with that sickly 5-3-2-3 shape and three jacks. I would have preferred some sort of strength showing bid – either 2NT or a long-suit game try of three clubs inviting North to game, which she would have probably refused.

Anyway, the contract was four spades and West led the ten of diamonds. When dummy appeared, declarer recognised that he would need East to hold both major suit kings if he was to succeed in making ten tricks – there was simply no way to avoid three club losers. Declarer began by winning the first trick in dummy with the king of diamonds.

Next he ran the nine of trumps and was pleased to see that it held. As he had no side entry to dummy remaining, declarer turned his attention to the hearts. Declarer began by calling for the Queen of hearts from dummy. All would have been easy for declarer if East had covered this with the King (he would win the Ace of hearts then cross back to dummy with a low heart to the ten to repeat the spade finesse).

When East played low declarer unblocked the Jack of hearts from his hand and was relieved to see that he had won the trick. Next he led the ten of hearts from dummy.

As the cards lay, it did not matter whether East covered it with the King: declarer would have three heart tricks and still be in dummy to repeat the trump finesse.

So declarer made ten tricks: five trumps, three hearts and two diamonds. You should note that if declarer had failed to unblock the Jack of hearts under dummy’s Queen he would be limited to taking only two of the three needed finesses.

His best bet after the Queen of hearts held would be to lead a heart to his Jack and cash the Ace of trumps. Alas, on the above layout this would see him lose four tricks – three clubs and the trump King.

Of interest is that if the seven and four of trumps were switched, declarer would have to play on hearts (as above) first. If instead declarer leads the nine of trumps before playing the heart suit, East can defeat the contract by covering it with the King (declarer would no longer be able to re-enter dummy with a fourth round of trumps).

• David Ezekiel can be reached at davidezekiel999@gmail.com