Mastering the standard suit combinations is something that requires time, trouble and the occasional visit to the textbooks. And it is not always so easy to distinguish one position from the next.

Here South sensibly offered clubs an alternative strain — even the 5-3 fit might have played best if declarer needed to ruff out spades. North was happy to play the suit slam, but after the lead of the heart nine, South saw there was no obvious advantage to playing there — that is, unless declarer went for an endplay rather than attempting to squeeze a third trick out of the spades.

That said, how would you maximize your chances of developing three tricks from the spades? Declarer’s decision to run the spade jack, then later play the ace and king in an attempt to drop the 10, was not a success.

This was a better try than cashing both top spades, I believe, though that would have worked as the cards lie, as would taking two finesses or even leading a low spade toward the jack. But the best technical line is to draw trumps, cash the spade ace and continue with the nine, planning to let it run if East plays low.

You next plan to run the spade jack if West follows with a small card. While this line fails if East blithely plays low on the second round from queen-empty-fourth or even queen-third, this still represents the best odds play. And you could argue that if he does find this defense, he deserves to beat you.

Splinter bids in response to major-suit opening bids help a partnership determine whether they are in the slam zone and whether their cards fit. One style is to play that responder’s double jumps in a new suit are limited by the failure to use the Jacoby two no-trump. Another style says that a jump like one heart – three spades shows an unspecified splinter in the range 10-13 (over which opener can ask or sign off), while the direct jump shows a full opener, and one heart – three no-trump shows the equivalent splinter in spades.

In today’s deal, North-South reached slam, and West looked no further than his spade sequence. How would you plan the play to avoid needing to rely on a favorable lie of the opponents’ cards?

The answer is to win the spade ace and ruff a spade high, then play the diamond ace and ruff a further diamond. Now ruff a spade high, ruff a diamond high, draw trumps and lead a club from dummy, planning to cover whatever East plays. If East plays low, you put in the nine and force West to lead back a club or give a ruff-sluff. If East puts up the 10, you play the queen, and when West wins his king, he is faced with the same unpalatable alternatives.

Note that this play requires both diamonds and spades to be fully extracted and trumps drawn before the first club play. The essence of an elimination is to remove as many of the defenders’ exit cards as you can.

At the Philadelphia Spring Nationals, David Grainger was the hero in this deal from the Jacoby Open Swiss Teams. Declaring four hearts, he won the low diamond lead and played three rounds of spades, discarding a diamond. West ruffed the third spade and returned a diamond. Put yourself in Grainger’s shoes: You ruff and … what’s your plan?

Grainger inferred East’s likely shape as 4162, since if East had had a singleton club, his partner would have known to give him the ruff. So he needed to find East with a singleton heart honor. Accordingly, South cashed the heart ace, dropping the queen, then led a club to the jack.

Declarer next ruffed a spade with the heart jack, leaving West no good options. In essence, he was squeezed in three suits, one of which was trump. An overruff or an underruff would clearly have been fatal, so West chose to discard a diamond. Declarer now simply led a trump toward dummy’s 10 and was home no matter what West did, since South could draw the last trump sooner or later, then give up a club.

If West had pitched a club instead of a diamond, declarer would have led a club toward dummy. If West had risen with the club ace and led a diamond, declarer could — for example — pitch a club from dummy and ruff in hand. Then the club king followed by another club act as surrogate trumps, limiting the defense to just one more trump trick.

In today’s Common Game deal, my partner played three hearts, making three, when he drew trumps and tested spades but could not develop an extra club trick. The cards appear to lie poorly for declarer, but I saw some pairs had bid to four hearts, and a few had made it. I wondered if that was possible without some defensive help; I asked a couple of players and found the answer.

At one table, West cashed two diamonds, then shifted to a trump. Declarer took East’s jack with the ace, took two top spades and guessed correctly to ruff a spade high, West pitching a diamond. Then he finessed the heart nine, cashed the heart king and ruffed another spade high to squeeze West. When that player came down to his last diamond, declarer eventually threw him in with a diamond, pitching a club from the board. West now had to lead a club and concede the rest.

At another table, the defenders led three rounds of diamonds. Declarer ruffed in dummy and played five rounds of trumps. Everyone came down to five cards, with dummy having one club and four spades. West kept one spade, one diamond and three clubs, while East had to keep four spades and one club. Reading the position perfectly, declarer led the spade nine to the ace, took the club ace and played his low spade to dummy’s five. East won cheaply, but was endplayed.

Had West kept two spades and three clubs, declarer would have taken both top spades and ducked a club to West to endplay him.

Is your money on declarer or the defense in today’s contract of four hearts? It looks as if the duplication in the minor suits makes declarer’s task very hard, but if the defenders are to survive, they will need to be very careful.

Declarer receives a top spade lead against four hearts. He ducks, wins the spade continuation and draws trumps in three rounds, then cashes the diamond ace and king and ruffs a spade before leading a third round of diamonds. West must be careful to have preserved a small diamond (perhaps by pitching his small spade on the third trump) so that East can win the third diamond, or the defense is over.

After East does win the third round of diamonds, he must next lead a club, or declarer can ruff the plain suit in hand, pitching a club; then South should guess clubs. However, if East leads the club ace, he reduces his side’s potential club winners to one.

All of this means that East must shift to a low club, and now declarer (who needs West to have the club queen) has a choice of plays. Putting in the eight makes the contract by force if East started with the nine of clubs. The other play, of putting up the jack, will work out if West covers that card with the queen, but it is fatal if West remembers to duck — easier said than done!

The bottom line is that the contract should be defeated on best defense. But as one of my cynical partners was wont to say, what are the chances of that happening?

After North’s one-no-trump rebid, South used the New-Minor Forcing inquiry of two diamonds. This call promised invitational or better values. North’s rebid of two spades denied four hearts and promised three-card spade support, after which South leapt slightly ambitiously to game.

When West led the diamond jack, declarer weighed up his options thoughtfully. He would surely need a favorable trump break, but even if hearts were 4-3, that would still only get him to nine tricks. Four trumps, two hearts, a heart ruff and the minor-suit aces would come to nine. He would therefore need to make all five of his own trumps, his four side-suit winners and a heart ruff to bring the total to 10.

At trick two, South played a club to the ace, then ruffed a club. After cashing dummy’s trump ace and king, he ruffed another club. Then declarer crossed his fingers before cashing the heart ace and king and ruffing a heart. When dummy’s small trump held, he had nine tricks. For his last piece of good luck, he led the club jack from dummy and scored his trump en passant.

If East ruffed high, declarer would throw a heart from hand and eventually score his remaining trump for his 10th trick. In practice, East discarded a diamond, allowing declarer to score the game-going trick by ruffing the club jack.

Had declarer ruffed dummy’s fourth club before ruffing a heart, East could have pitched a heart and later over-ruffed the third club.

When West overcalled two clubs, North had a hand worth a drive to game, but he took it slowly in case there was slam in the offing. His three-club call showed a limit raise or better; over his partner’s discouraging three-heart call, he simply raised to game. South’s other options would have been to temporize with a three-diamond call — a “last-train” bid passing the buck to his partner, to jump to game or to make a slam try himself.

The defenders led three rounds of clubs, allowing declarer to ruff. Before he continued, South assessed the position and determined that unless trumps were incredibly hostile, he would have no further problems. He led a trump to the ace, expecting that if anyone were void in hearts, it would be West; that would leave him with a marked finesse in trumps. To South’s dismay, though, it was East who showed out. Can you identify declarer’s best plan from here on in?

He next eliminated diamonds by playing the king and ace and ruffing the third. When West followed suit to all three rounds, it was clear he could hold no more than two spades. So South cashed the ace and king of spades and exited with a trump.

In the two-card ending, West had only clubs left to lead. Declarer could ruff in one hand and throw the losing spade from the other.

Note that with this trump holding, it never costs to start with the ace; if West has the length, you can never pick it up, no matter what you do.

Today’s deal emphasizes the notion that rules are all well and good, but you have to know when to apply them. We are all accustomed to ducking our aces as declarer in a no-trump contract to try to sever the defenders’ communications. But there is a time and place for everything, and rules should not be applied unthinkingly.

When West led the diamond six against three no-trump, it might have seemed that ducking would help to sever the defense’s link in that suit. In fact, though, declarer must rise with dummy’s ace rather than duck — since this play blocks the run of the suit if West has led from five cards. East surely started with a doubleton honor; if West held KQJxx, wouldn’t he have led a top honor? Moreover, if the suit is 4-3, ducking won’t cut the defenders’ communications.

Declarer duly rose with the ace and continued with a small heart to the king, which was ducked, then led another heart, won by West. That player returned the diamond two to his partner’s queen, but East could now do no better than shift to the spade queen.

South won and needed just three club tricks for his contract. Again, playing safe, he cashed the club king, then finessed the 10, making sure that if he lost the lead, it would be to the safe hand, East.

His care was rewarded with an overtrick, but even if the 10 had lost to the queen, declarer would still have had three club tricks, three hearts, two spades and the diamond ace.