After South doubles two hearts, then bids spades to show a good hand, North uses Keycard Blackwood, then asks for the trump queen (finding it and the club king).

In six spades, South takes the heart king lead in dummy and, protecting against an adverse trump split, begins to elope with his small trumps. A heart ruff is followed by the three top spades, West showing out on the second round. Declarer, pleased to have made good use of his heart entry, leads a diamond to the king and ruffs another heart. East should not have more than three hearts after West’s vulnerable weak two, coupled with the odd count signal at trick one. On this assumption, declarer has a lock for his contract.

He cashes the diamond ace; if West discards, East will be marked with a 4=3=5=1 pattern, and declarer will cash the club king, then take a club finesse to avoid setting up East’s long diamond. As it is, though, everyone follows to the diamond.

Accordingly, declarer continues with the diamond queen, putting East in an impossible position. If he ruffs with his master trump, he will be forced to lead into dummy’s club tenace. East can discard a club, which would suffice if declarer had begun with only three diamonds. But today this only delays the inevitable. On the next diamond, East is faced with a similar dilemma. Either he ruffs and leads a club, or he discards again and lets declarer collect two club tricks for his contract.

The modern style is to open a no-trump on in-range (and occasionally out-of-range!) hands when balanced or semi-balanced. So, hands may qualify that contain a five-card major, a six-card minor or even a 5-4-2-2 pattern with an awkward rebid or with its values concentrated in the short suits. The most inconvenient hands are those with a five-card minor and a higher suit, though hands with four spades are rarely a problem.

South was a purist, though, and opened one heart. When West pre-empted in spades, North cue-bid three spades to show at least a high-card raise to game. South cue-bid four clubs, letting North drive to slam via the obligatory use of Key-card Blackwood. Plan the play now.

Declarer takes the club queen lead in hand and, after drawing trumps in three rounds, eliminates the minors in preparation for an endplay. He can surely see that West has six spades headed by the king for his weak jump overcall — can you see the winning line?

South cashes the club king, ruffs a club and plays three rounds of diamonds. He then plays a low spade from both hands. If East is allowed to win, he must give declarer a ruff-and-discard, while if West wins, he has an equally unattractive option of leading around to declarer’s spade queen. Either way, the second spade loser vanishes.

Note that cashing the spade ace first, or leading a spade to the queen, would allow West to win and safely return a spade.

On today’s hand, an unorthodox (many would use a stronger term, with five cards in the other major) weak jump overcall from West propelled North-South into a dicey five clubs, not that the no-trump game would have fared any better. North started with a negative double, then tried to right-side three no-trump. South showed his extras and fifth club with a jump to game, but North had nothing more to say.

Declarer won the spade lead in dummy and drew trumps in three rounds, ending on the table. A heart followed, East swooping in with the ace to cash the spade jack before returning a passive heart.

South now decided not to play for a red-suit squeeze on East. Given that West apparently had six spades and one club, he therefore had to hold a fourth heart or three diamonds.

Instead, declarer discarded diamonds on the heart queen-jack and, when everyone followed, East was marked with diamond length. West must hold either the queen-jack doubleton or a singleton honor for the game to stand a chance, but which?

Aiming to get a count on the hand, declarer ruffed dummy’s last heart. When East showed out, declarer now needed to find West with a singleton diamond honor. When it appeared on the diamond ace, he tabled his cards, taking the marked diamond finesse.

A neat discovery play — while a singleton honor is more likely than the doubleton queen-jack, why guess when you can be sure of the answer?

Defense may be the hardest part of the game, since partner’s hand is concealed, but sometimes logic will help you out. Declarer wins the opening diamond lead in hand with the king. He next plays a club to dummy’s queen and East’s ace. What should East do now?

At the table, East returned a heart. Declarer won with the ace and ran all his trumps. His last five cards were four spades and a diamond, while dummy kept three spades and ace doubleton in diamonds. East wanted to keep four spades and two diamonds, but had to discard from one suit or the other, and either would be fatal.

Could East have done better? Yes, he had a chance to break up the squeeze by playing a second diamond when in with the club ace. West might have started with a singleton diamond, in which case the contract would have been beaten immediately. Furthermore, even if West had a doubleton diamond, although declarer could win a cheap trick with dummy’s 10, he would not be able to cash the ace without letting West obtain a ruff. His best play would be for spades to break, and when that did not happen, he would be one down.

Note that declarer could have succeeded anyway by starting with a high trump from hand at trick two. East wins (it does not help to duck) and must play a diamond. But now declarer can guess to draw West’s last trump with the club queen and cash dummy’s diamond ace, discarding his spade loser.

There are, on occasion, good reasons for not telling the truth with your initial signal. For example, sometimes you should tell partner you like his opening lead, even when you are not wild about it. The best reason for doing so is that there may be no better lead available to him; let us look at where we want to deter partner from making the “obvious” switch.

On the auction shown, put yourself in the East seat, and consider how you want to signal when partner leads the spade king. Your systematic play would be to discourage by playing your lowest spade, here the two, but think before you play. Do you really want partner to attack diamonds, which is his most probable switch if you discourage spades? After all, your partner does not know that the clubs will not prove a fertile source of discards for declarer. If the layout is like the one shown, you will certainly be better off encouraging a spade continuation. (Partner needs to cash that second spade winner while he can, before declarer pitches his spade loser on the clubs.)

When West leads three rounds of spades, declarer pitches one diamond loser, then can discard another diamond on the second of the top clubs. But he is left with three diamonds in each hand and no way to avoid losing two diamond tricks in the fullness of time, no matter what he does.

In today’s deal, South added one point to his 19 in high cards (for aces, his good intermediates, and because it was a Wednesday) and opened two no-trump. North could find no way to declare the hand, so he simply raised to game.

After West’s lead of the spade jack, South reasonably covered with dummy’s queen, perhaps more in hope than expectation, and wisely ducked when the king appeared. He took the next spade trick, worried about a possible heart shift if he ducked again, as West followed with the 10 to suggest a heart entry. Then South passed the club two around to East.

Declarer won the heart return, tested the clubs and claimed nine tricks when they split. No one at the table noticed the blunder that had cost the contract — did you?

It was West who let the game make, when a more thoughtful defense can set it. He must put up his club 10 on the first round. If declarer lets the 10 hold, West has the spade suit to cash, and if South covers the 10 with his king, he no longer has any entries to dummy to reach the good clubs.

Note that if declarer cashes the club ace at trick three, East has to unblock an honor to set the hand — otherwise South ducks a club to him in safety. But when East unblocks, West’s club 10 again causes declarer the same problem. He cannot duck the club and leave West on play, and he cannot capture the club 10 in dummy, or he loses the entry to the long suit.

Do you always tell the truth at the bridge table? It may not be as much of a virtue as you imagine. Consider the following deal from a world pairs event at Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 1994, in which giving partner the natural signal would have cost you blood.

It seems natural for West to lead a top club against four spades, but how should East signal? Although it may not be obvious, a little reflection will suggest that it can do no harm to discourage the suit, because you know that at best getting a ruff will break even, since you are ruffing with a trump trick.

As you can see, if West goes ahead and gives his partner a ruff, it will allow South to discard his heart loser on this trick. That allows him to escape for just down one — and minus 100 would represent a very fine score, since it beats all the East-West pairs making game or part-score in hearts, whereas minus 300 would not be nearly as good.

Of course, West might cash his second top club at trick two, in case East has a singleton club, though he probably should not do so. But in any event, the position at the end of the second round of the suit should be clear to West. If partner has a doubleton (which you now know to be the case) and has told you unequivocally that he does not want a ruff, he has his reasons — don’t try to overrule him. Just play a heart as directed!

At the Dyspeptics Club, everyone wisely mistrusts everybody else’s declarer play. Even so, when South showed a spade suit, North had some hope of slam. However, when South denied interest, North wisely did not go past game.

As he put down dummy, North remarked caustically that even South would find it difficult to go down here. Not so; West found the intelligent opening lead of a low trump, imagining his club strength would be over declarer’s and that partner would have hearts over the dummy. East liked the idea of playing a trump, but realized that if he won the ace and returned a trump, he would not be able to get in to play a third round of the suit. Accordingly, he ducked the opening lead. Declarer won in hand and crossed to dummy with a top heart to take a club finesse. But West won and fired back a second trump. Now when East won his ace and drew a third round of trumps, the vile club split meant there was nothing declarer could do; nine tricks were the limit.

South complained about his bad luck, but had only himself to blame. He should have won the spade 10, then played three rounds of hearts, ruffing high in hand. He could then play a diamond to the ace and ruff a second heart high. At this point, he would have the first seven tricks in the bag and be able to play the ace, king and a third diamond, ruffing low. He would have the club ace and two more sure trump tricks in dummy for 11 winners.