Dealer: North  Both Vul

Our hand this week is all about ducking and the rule of 7.

West leads ♣5 and you will need to hold up so as to cut communications between the two defenders. If the Clubs are breaking in the opponents hands 4:4 you will probably be OK as they will only be able  to take 3 Club tricks. If the suit breaks 5:3 or even 6:2 you will have to hold up for  two rounds before taking the Club Ace. The Rule of 7 speeds up the thought process. Add the number of cards you have between your hand and dummy and take this number away from 7 and that tells you how may times to hold up.

Declarer has 5 clubs between the two hands and 7 - 5 means you have to hold up for two rounds.

You take the Ace of clubs after two rounds.

You now play the ♦Queen finessing into the safe hand. East wins and gets off lead with another Diamond (bit odd). You now cash your Diamonds pleased to see the suit breaking 3:3. On the 5th Diamond East throws a second Heart.

Before cashing your 4 winners play the Heart Ace and get a nice surprise when East plays the King. It now appears that EAST HAS BEEN SQUEEZED in Spades and Hearts and now you make an overtrick from that Heart Queen in dummy and now you can see why East came back with a third Diamond.

You amassed 3 Spades, 2 Hearts, 4 Diamonds and 1 Club for a very well played hand.