Play Hard, Play Well:  A Good Start
Dealer: North                           ♠ KJ
All Vul.                                    ♥ 6
Masterpoints                            ♦ AKQ1063
                                                ♣ 8632  

 
            ♠ 10975
            ♥ AQ752
            ♦ 2
            ♣ KJ7

 
The Auction:                 1♦        Pass     1♥        2♥
(hands rotated)             3♣       Pass     3N       X
                                    All Pass

2♥ bid was natural, showing a sound opening hand with a good 5 card or 6+ card ♥ suit.
Opening Lead: ♥K 
(LHO has made an unusual lead hoping to find a singleton honor in dummy.)

Plan your  play!

Fortunately, the opponents have been helpful at revealing their holdings during the auction.  We can be certain that LHO has all of the missing HCP (17) and likely all the six of the missing hearts.
1:  ♥K ♥6 ♥10 ♥A       (+1)

We first notice that we have some difficult transportation problems on the hand.  Keeping this in mind, we need to decide what to do at trick two.  The two reasonable choices are to play on diamonds or lead up to the spade honors.  Leading up to the spades could be dangerous if the diamonds are not running, so we play on the diamonds first.  It’s a tough choice about whether to play the diamonds from the top or take the first round finesse.  Today, as you can see, it doesn’t matter:
2:  ♦2 ♦4 ♦10 ♦9           (+2)
3:  ♦A ♦5 ♥2 ♦J            (+3)
4:  ♦K ♦7 ♠5 ♥3           (+4)
5:  ♦Q ♦8 ♠7 ♥4           (+5)

After having made a few discards we are starting to get a strong feel for the distribution of the hand.  We assume LHO had 6 card ♥ suit, ♣AQ, and ♠AQ.  We have seen the ♦J4. So LHO has only one other black card.

6:  ♦6 ♠4 ♥5 ♠8            (+6)

The ♠8 must be LHO’s only other black card.  So we know the ending position with virtual certainty. 
7:  ♦3 ♣5 ♠9 ♥8           (+7)
8:  ♠J ♠2 ♠10 ♠Q          (-1)

 It may have been safer to play on clubs at trick 8 (in case LHO didn’t have the ♠Q,) but we feel very confident about our reading of the table position.
9:   ♠A ♠K ♠3 ♣7         (-2)
10:  ♥J ♣2 ♠6 ♥Q        (+8)

Thus, the three card ending we are left with is…
                                    ♠ --                                 
                                    ♥ --
                                    ♦ --
                                    ♣ 863

♠ --                                                      ♠ --
♥ 9                                                      ♥ --
♦ --                                                      ♦ --
♣ AQ                                                   ♣ 1094

♠ --
            ♥ 7
            ♦ --
            ♣ KJ

We exit with the ♥7, end-playing West, forcing him to give us our 9^th trick.

The Complete Deal:
                                  ♠ KJ
                                  ♥ 6
                                  ♦ AKQ1063
                                  ♣ 8632   

♠ AQ8                                                              ♠ 6432
♥ KJ9843                                                         ♥ 10
♦ J4                                                                  ♦ 9875
♣ AQ                                                               ♣ 10954

                                   ♠ 10975
                                   ♥ AQ752    
                                   ♦ 2        
                                   ♣ KJ7                   

This hand was from the finals of the 2006 North American Pairs Flight B for District 9 in Vero Beach, FL.  We played this hand in the first round of the final session.  Unfortunately, neither my partner nor I were the declarer on the hand, we were the defenders!  This hand was well played by the eventual winners of the event, Kevin Dwyer (declarer) and John Zaleskie.

Congratulations Kevin and John!  And good luck in St. Louis.