LEARNING CENTER

1NT. 15-17 balanced. This is a recording. You don't need all 4 suits stopped.

Play diamonds from your hand.  (Option 2 is also acceptable and would work -- see below).

You have 8 top tricks (9 if the clubs are no worse than 4-2).

You could try to set up a heart trick, but by then, the opponents might have good spades.

Working on diamonds will give you an extra trick no matter what (if they are 3-3). You still have a second spade stopper and you have hearts stopped.

However, if you play clubs first, it will be too late for the diamonds. There will be no entry to dummy if they are 3-3.

As you can see from the deal below, playing diamonds sets up your 9th trick. If clubs had split well, it still would have been worth an overtrick to play diamonds first. 

Note: On the actual layout, holding up in spades and then using club entries to play hearts would also have worked.

Thank you for taking our quiz on "Don't Paint Yourself into a Corner--Notrump."