I’m travelling a lot over the next few weeks, so forgive me if the preamble to the hand is a bit dry! What I will do, however, if I don’t have a preamble, is give you card combinations that you will meet time and time again — and then tell you how to handle it.

The first one is Jxxx opposite AQxx (or, same, Qxxx opposite AJxx).

You want to try the finesse, but what you cannot do is play the Jack in the first combination or the Queen in the second — that guarantees a loser!

Your only hope is Kx onside so play a low one to the Queen and if it holds cash the Ace hoping to drop the King.

Notice that if you played the Jack any good defender will cover with the King and now you must lose a trick to the ten! More next week.

This week’s hand (see Figure 1) is all about thinking ahead and taking your time at trick one.

South opened one diamond and soon found himself playing the small slam in diamonds — West led the Queen of spades.

So — a couple of hints before you tackle the play — firstly, think ahead, and secondly think back to a few columns ago where I covered the Morton’s Fork, where a defender is handed two options, both losing ones.

Ready? The key here is to ruff the first spade and not use one of the high honours from dummy, as you do not really have a useful discard to make — at trick two South leads a low heart and West is, and there are many words I can use here, in an impossible situation.

If he ducks, declarer wins the Queen, draws trumps and both remaining hearts go away on the top two spades — now declarer can take the club finesse for an overtrick but settles for 12 tricks.

So, West must take the Ace but declarer is now ahead — win any return, cash the heart Queen, draw trumps and now pitch a club from dummy on the heart King. Now declarer’s third club can be ruffed in dummy setting up the suit — once again, 12 tricks.

Go back to trick one — if you win the spade in dummy, no matter what you discard from hand will allow the defenders to beat you — try it!

• Before I close, many many congratulations to Diana Diel for achieving the huge milestone of Sapphire Life Master status by reaching a heady 3,500 master points! This is such a well deserved award for a player who, as good as she is, keeps reaching for a higher level, which is such an admirable trait. Certainly something to be celebrated.

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

BRIDGE CLUB RESULTS

Friday, September 12

1 Richard Gray/Wendy Gray

2 Tony Saunders/Margaret Way

3 Robert Todd/Rachael Gosling

Monday, September 15

1 Patricia Siddle/Diana Diel

2 Tracy Nash/Desmond Nash

3 Allyson Eadie/Aida Bostelmann

Tuesday, September 16

North/South

1 Caitlin Conyers/Ben Stone

2 Jamie Sapsford/Jane Dowling

East/West

1 Sanja Thompson/Wilena White

2Amanda Ingham/Heidi Dyson

Wednesday, September 17

1 Elysa Burland/Magda Farag

2 Richard Gray/Wendy Gray

3= Molly Taussig/Sheena Rayner

3= Martha Ferguson/Judy King