IMPs

1.	A K 9 7 3 A K J 2 A Q J 2
None Vul	Q 2 K 7 4 A J T 9 7 5 3 2

West Pass Pass Pass

North 2 3 5

East Pass Pass All Pass

South 2 3 4

Contract: 5C in the South
Made ?

The auction was natural, though not standard, and we've reached a normal contract

A low heart is led. With a favorable club layout, there will be 12 tricks but 11 looks easy. As always when things look simple, you should ask yourself "What can go wrong?" Looks at those club spots. If one opponent has all the trumps, there are 3 possible losers. A common theme on bad trump splits is scoring small trumps early. We have no use for discards so we might as well start at trick 1.
5, 2, 8, 2
Lead the trump ace and see what happens. If everyone follows, the rest is easy. As it happens, LHO pitches on the first trump. All is not lost. With our club holding, the contract is guaranteed but we must be guess RHOs distribution. We need to cash our winners and score two more of our small trumps. We have 7 spades and 7 diamonds between us. The spade suit is more likely to give us information so we cross with a spade and ruff another heart. RHO followed small on the 1st spade so a 2nd spade figures to be safe. Cash a heart, throwing a diamond, and ruff a heart. Spade to the board which holds, whew. Cash another heart, throwing a 2nd diamond and ruff a spade. A diamond to dummy completes our task. We are down to JT97 and would succeed no matter who had the long clubs. RHO cannot stop us from taking 2 more tricks. As it turned out, RHO held a singleton diamond so our sequence was necessary to succeed.

Exhibit 2

Tough Breaks

IMPs

2.	K 9 6 4 A J 5 2 J 5 4 7 5
None Vul	A 8 7 5 4 A 8 7 2 A Q 8 3

West Pass Pass Pass Double

North 1 2 4 All Pass

East Pass Pass Pass

South 1 1 3 Pass

4 X in the South
Made ?
Many times, you will be tipped off to a bad trump split on the auction. Here LHO doubles, suggesting that trumps are not going to break. We're going to need some good fortune but knowing trumps aren't breaking in advance gives us an advantage. The first trick unfolds thusly: K, A, 6, 4
That bodes well for the club finesse, we'll certainly need that to succeed. 5, 2, Q, 6
Now comes time for the key play. We want to cash winners before cross-ruffing but we also want to keep communications open. We'll see the importance of this trick later. 2, Q, 4, 6
LHO cannot lead trumps without weakening his holding and in fact has no winning play. Let's say he continues diamonds. 9, J, K, A
A, T, 7, 9
3, 6, 4, J
2, 9, 5, 7
It looks like LHO is 4522. If he has 5 spades, that will be too difficult, but 4 can be handled. It's very likely he has QJTx, we can put those spots to work. 7, T, K, 3
LHO splits as he figured to. That's 7 tricks. A heart ruff to hand makes 8 and the 4th club finishes LHO. If he ruffs low or discards, dummy scores a small trump for the 10th trick. If he ruffs high, dummy's last diamond goes away and a diamond can be ruffed. The process of scoring ones trumps while a defender has to follow (or in this case has no effective counter) is called an elopement. One last example where a defender actually has too many trumps.

Exhibit 3

Tough Breaks

IMPs

3.	A Q 7 3 5 4 K 6 3 A K 5 2
None vul	T 5 A K J 9 3 A 7 2 7 6 4

West Pass Pass Double

North 1 4 All Pass

East Pass Pass

South 1 2 Pass

Contract: 4H X in the South
Made ?
West had all the remaining hearts on this hand, as it turned out, he had too many. On the face of it, there is a club loser, and diamond loser, and 4 trump losers. Believe it or not, 4 of those defensive tricks will disappear. Trick 1 is:
2, Q, 4, 5
We have a lot of high cards, LHO must be doubling on a heart stack. Time to cash our winners. Take the spade ace, and ruff a spade low (this is safe unless LHO has led low from Kx). The king falls on the 3rd round. Lead a club to dummy (in case LHO is out), diamond to hand, club to dummy. That's 6 tricks. Try a 2nd diamond, costs nothing to try. As it happens, it holds. LHO has shown up with 3 spades and 2 in each minor. We can't be sure but LHO probably is down to all trumps. Lead a minor card and LHO has to trump. He then has to lead a trump into your tenace. Lead the other minor suit loser and LHO has to trump again and adding insult to injury is endplayed again. Making 5.

Next time you get a bad trump split; don't panic, use the information to your advantage.