This is aHand:

It's decision time again. Another game contract and another chance to put your declarer-play skills to the test.

Can you decide what the best line of play is on this deal? 

Bidding.

We open 1♠ as dealer on a 5·3·3·2 13-count and partner responds 2♦. We rebid 2NT to show a minimum, balanced hand (12 to 14 points) and this gives partner enough information to know that 4♠ is the right spot.

So the full bidding is 1♠ – 2♦ – 2NT – 4♠.

Play.

West kicks off with the ♥Q lead against 4♠. Naturally, we apply the maxim of Count – Plan – Execute.

Winners? Well, we've got a few – five Spades (assuming they aren't 5-0), two Hearts and four Diamonds once the ♦A has been knocked out. We may make a Club trick, but that depends on the whereabouts of the ♣A. That's eleven winners, you should note (you may think it's twelve but don't forget the opponents have two Aces...)

It might be possible to play three rounds of Hearts and ruff the last on the table, but is that sensible? No! We have just counted ten available tricks – in these circumstances it is best to draw trumps. We can dump our Heart loser (and maybe a Club, if we are lucky) on the long Diamonds.

With (at least) ten tricks available we don't need the risk of a Heart ruff – take what’s rightfully ours. Draw trumps and knock out the ♦A. As a point of technique we should win the ♥K at trick one, preserving the ♥A as an entry to the long Diamonds.

So... Win the ♥K, draw four round of trumps and play the ♦J. As the cards lie, East takes it with the ♦A and the defenders cash two Club tricks. After that we can claim the rest.

If we were to attempt to ruff a Heart on table we would get a rude shock – East would over-ruff and the defenders would cash two Clubs and the ♦A. Oops!