Start With The End

	♠ A Q 10 5 ♥ A K ♦ Q J 10 5 4 ♣ A 10
	N W E S
	♠ 4 3 ♥ 7 6 2 ♦ A K 9 8 7 3 ♣ 9 7

West leads the ♥ J against your 6 ♦ contract. What is your plan?

Let's go through Declarer's ARCH: Analyze. Review. Count. How?

Analyze the lead: It looks like the jack from jack-ten-whatever. This implies that East has the queen.
Review the auction: The opponents passed throughout the auction after you opened  2♦.
Count your tricks: In a suit contract, it's usually more effective to count losing tricks
 - maybe a spade loser, depending on where the ♠ K is
 - no heart losers, you can ruff your third heart in dummy
 - no diamond loser
 - one loser in clubs
How to play the hand?The club loser looks to be unavoidable. If the spade finesse works (50%), you make the contract. Is there any better way?

What if you can get East to lead spades? Or give you a ruff-and-sluff to discard a spade from your hand? Can you put East on lead with a club trick late in the hand?

If East has the ♣ KQ doubleton, she will have to win a club trick. If she has ♣ KQx or ♣ Kx and isn't paying attention, she might not unblock the king under your ace; same result, she will win the second round of clubs. And if she has ♣ KJx or ♣ QJ or ♣ QJx and West doesn't come to her rescue: same result, East will be stuck on lead. And if none of that works out and West ends up on lead, you still have a 50% chance with the spade finesse!

The effect you are trying to accomplish is called a "throw-in" play. To make it work, you need to figure out how to put East on lead, but first eliminate all other safe exits. So, here we go...

• Win the A♥. and lead the A♣ right now (I'll talk about why later on...) 
• Then draw trumps using dummy's high diamonds; save your high diamonds for later entries.
• Then K♥, and a diamond to your hand
• Ruff your last heart. Now, both your hand and dummy are out of hearts and clubs. The opponents are out of diamonds.
• Make a wish before leading dummy's last club: hope that East wins the trick! 

If East wins the club trick, either

1. she leads a spade into dummy's ♠ AQ, making six, or
2. she leads a heart or a club, you can discard a spade from your hand, making six

And if West wins the club trick, you are no worse off than you were before. West will lead a spade and you will try the spade finesse. Alas, the finesse doesn't work this time; good thing you were able to endplay East!

	♠ A Q 10 5 ♥ A K ♦ Q J 10 5 4 ♣ A 10
♠ J 8 7 ♥ J 10 ♦ 2 ♣ J 8 6 5 4 3 2	N W E S	♠ K 9 6 2 ♥ Q 9 8 5 4 3 ♦ 6 ♣ K Q
	♠ 4 3 ♥ 7 6 2 ♦ A K 9 8 7 3 ♣ 9 7

BONUS MINUTE: Declarer should play the ♣ A at trick two, just in case East and West haven't thought through the entire hand and recognized the possible need for East to escape the endplay. If declarer draws trumps and clears hearts before leading clubs, the impending endplay will be much more obvious. One more reason to always think through the hand before playing to the first trick...

-- Ray
Better Bridge in 5 Minutes. Guaranteed! (or the next one is free)