You are East in four spades. You dealt and opened one spade, partner responded two diamonds and you signed off in four spades with your six likely spade tricks plus the ace of hearts. South leads the seven of hearts. How do you plan to play?
Start by counting your losers. You have one club loser and one potential diamond loser. Spades will break 2-2 almost 41 percent of the time and 3-1 almost 50 percent of the time. When spades break 3-1 the queen will be singleton 1/4 of the time. By playing spades from the top the queen will drop 53 percent of the time, so it’s best to play for the drop in spades.
Assuming the queen does drop, what’s your best play for overtricks? You have finesses availabe for the ace of clubs and the king of diamonds.
The order in which you take the two finesses makes a difference. It’s best to finesse for the ace of clubs first. If it loses you can still fall back on the diamond finesse. But if you took the diamond finesse first and it lost, defenders could cash the ace of clubs immediately, holding you to 11 tricks. If the club finesse wins you can attempt the diamond finesse for 13 tricks. If it loses, you are still able to attempt the diamond finesse for 12 tricks.
Recommended sequence of plays: Let the opening lead ride around to your ace-jack of hearts (a free finesse). Cash the top two spades. When the queen drops begin by finessing for the ace of clubs as described above.