When your hand contains a long, strong suit (or suits), it is generally better to value your hand by counting your playing tricks (the number of tricks you expect to make with your long suit as trumps) rather than high card points. How strong is the South hand below?
NORTH
♠ KQ543
♥ 62
♦ 542
♣ 543
SOUTH (you)
♠ A
♥ AKJT9873
♦ 3
♣ A76
Normally when you are missing the queen in your long suit (in this case hearts), you would expect to lose a trick to it, but here with eight hearts, the queen will fall so long as the suit divides reasonably, so the odds are that you will make all eight tricks in that suit (especially since you have the JT of hearts too). Add to that the two black aces and your hand is worth ten tricks, enough to force to game.
Let's say you open with your strongest bid (such as a Benjamin 2D or a Strong 2C) and finish in 4H. West leads the AK of diamonds. How should you plan the hand?
We've already worked out that you have ten likely tricks in your own hand so, even allowing for the lack of entries to dummy to get to the two extra spade winners there, the contract is likely to succeed.
At the table, declarer ruffed with the H3 then banged down a top heart, and got a nasty shock when West showed out, marking East with Qxx of hearts. With no way to get to dummy to take the marked heart finesse, the contract had to go one light. This was the complete hand:
NORTH
♠ KQ543
♥ 62
♦ 542
♣ 543
WEST EAST
♠ J987 ♠ T62
♥ - ♥ Q54
♦ AKQ6 ♦ JT987
♣ KJ982 ♣ QT
SOUTH (you)
♠ A
♥ AKJT9873
♦ 3
♣ A76
Declarer should not have been so surprised to find all the missing trumps in one hand - a 3-0 break occurs 22% of the time. But was there any way to guard against this bad split?
Unless the defenders lead clubs at the start of the hand, the contract should be made. Declarer must recognise that dummy's H6 is a potential entry to the spades. There are a couple of key steps. When ruffing diamonds, South must not use the H3 - this low heart is needed so there is a way to cross to dummy. Then unblock the bare SA and lead the HJ to force out the HQ. Win the return, then play the H3 over to dummy's H6, and of course take advantage of this carefully arranged visit to dummy to cash the spade winners, throwing the club losers from hand and making 11 tricks.
East, like the Trojans in an earlier contest, would do better not to accept a gift from the enemy. Declarer's HJ lead (instead of leading the top hearts and hoping the suit broke 2-1) only makes sense for what it is, namely an attempt to force an entry to dummy with the H6. East can thwart this by refusing to take the HQ. Admittedly this sacrifices any hope of making a heart trick (the HQ will now fall under the AK) but it stops the H6 becoming an entry to dummy's two spade winners, and thereby holds declarer to ten tricks.