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A heart from dummy, covering whatever East plays is 100% certain to land the contract. a) The hearts break 3-2 or b) West is now end-played to lead away from his hearts or c) West is now end-played with his singleton or d) you won the last trick! Quite neat.

At one table South cocked up the early play by not eliminating the side suits but found he was able to recover by squeezing West between hearts and K for this twelfth trick.

When South cashes A and East drops the jack, taking the spades in isolation it is correct to finesse against West's supposed queen. Why?

Because Terence Reese said so, when he christened the 'Principle of Restricted Choice'.

If that is not good enough, imagine that if East had QJ alone, he would have had a choice of which to play, and would have played Q 50% of the time. The fact that he didn't play the Q suggests that he doesn't have it. If that's not good enough, the maths are interesting. I'm sure Professor Michael Glauert of UEA, good bridge player and excellent mathematician, could tell you, but you'd have to ask him!
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