Hi all
I haven’t been very active on the bridge front lately (live or online), my mind has been occupied with work (WebLogic .. arrrrrr … ) and personal distractions. Serious, probably yes; dramatic, no. No worries, I feel .. lighthearted, unchained, on top of my wave and at ease.
Nira probed me for a deal and who am I to let her down. Here’s me on defence (rotated for convenience).
Sitting West I start the defence with a low 
and now we move to declarer’s seat.
Declarer took a successful finesse against the Queen, crossed to a high trump catching nothing but grit. The tiny towards dummy gets captured swiftly and West reverts back to . This is what’s left:
Declarer decided to guard against a bad trump split by running the Ten now. I agree, I applaud players who harden their contracts with hard hats and thoughtful safety measures. Unfortunately it wasn’t as thoughtful as expected. West (I) won the trump with the Queen and promptly gave East a ruff. A 
loser was unavoidable so we write down 1 and €8.55 gets added to my account.
Full deal:
So what was declarer to do when in dummy with the Ten? For sure you can insert a safety measure! The one thing you have to do first is jettison the Ace on the King of . Now you can run trump Ten and if it loses West has no damaging return. You give up a trick and claim ten with four trumps, two clubs, three diamonds and a heart.
