After using new minor and offering a choice of games, you land in 4 with the J lead. Your plan?
Choose One:
Hold up.
Win and return a spade.
Win and start trump.
Win and play diamonds.
Win and play clubs.
Answer: 3 -
Win and start trump. Your potential losers are the A, 2 spades and 2 diamonds. The spade lead sets up 2 defensive spade winners, but you can get rid of both diamond losers on the clubs. Assuming, that is, that you start to draw trump at trick 2. Holding up allows a diamond switch. Trying clubs first invites the defense to trump one of your winners. This is actually a "draw trump and claim" deal. I prefer not to count winners, but on this deal there are 10 (4 hearts, 4 clubs and 2 aces). This is the full deal:
A76 
KJ1064 
A87 
43.
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