One of the aspects of the game that defeats beginners and intermediates is the concept that every card should mean something. Take this deal from the second semifinal session of a recent Kaplan Blue Ribbon Pairs.

North-South were playing Precision; hence, they perpetrated this inelegant sequence. Using fourth-highest leads, West started with the club four to the jack, queen and six. The club two return went to the nine and 10, and West played back the club three to East’s king. When West let the club-eight continuation hold the trick, East had to decide how to proceed. Dummy had pitched a heart and two diamonds on the clubs. Declarer had thrown a heart.

Should East play a spade, in case declarer started with five solid diamonds and the spade ace, or a diamond, in case he had the hand shown?

There are several clues in these sorts of positions, which spring from a player’s choice when he could play one of two or more equal cards. Here, West had decided to win the club 10, not the ace, at trick two. (This may not be obvious, but remember: West knows East has the king from the play to trick one.) He had then returned the club three, not the ace or five.

In summary, West has played the lowest of equal cards at each turn — so he must want a diamond shift (the lower of spades and diamonds). At the table, East was not up to drawing this inference: When he played a spade, declarer could scramble seven tricks.

In the round robin match between Denmark and Italy at the 1999 World Junior Teams in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, a textbook hand in suit-preference signaling came along. Unusually, it was the hand on lead making the suit-preference signal rather than the hand following suit.

Morten Madsen of Denmark as East thought long and hard before pushing his opponents with his call of two spades — and rightly so. The defense had seven tricks against that contract, but when North doubled a second time just to show cards, South decided against trying to take the penalty. You could certainly argue that, with a balanced hand and reasonable defense, it was more sensible to pass here, but at teams, players are often reluctant to sit for the double of a part-score into game.

The opening lead of the spade queen held the trick. Now Kaspar Konow (West) deliberately set up dummy’s spade 10 by leading a suit-preference jack at the second trick, since he knew that his partner’s delayed support was likely to be based on exactly a doubleton spade. Hence, he had to prepare the way for a spade ruff.

Madsen won his ace perforce and duly led a diamond (the higher of the minor suits) in order to ensure the ruff. There was still the diamond queen coming to the defense for the setting trick.

Notice that if East plays a club after winning his spade ace, declarer gets in to draw trumps at once, and the defenders lose their ruff.

This week’s themed deals are on the topic of suit-preference signals. There are standard situations where they should apply, the main ones being when giving partner a ruff or when you lead an honor against a suit contract and dummy has a singleton in the suit. However, there are many other scenarios where they come in handy, and today’s deal is one such example.

Imagine you find yourself in the hot seat as West. You are playing in the Mixed Board-a-Match Teams, where overtricks may be vital. You lead the diamond king, and in this context your partnership agreement (unlike this column’s) is that the ace is the normal lead from ace-king. So the king, if not from king-queen, suggests the ace-king doubleton — or that you are about to shift to a singleton.

You see a disturbingly good dummy. Partner contributes the two (odd number), and the diamond ace draws the three from partner. Do you trust partner and underlead your club holding for a possible diamond ruff? Susan Miller, playing with Bob Sartorius, did so, and her good play was rewarded when he won his king and gave her a diamond ruff for down one and a win on the board.

Partner’s lowest diamond at trick two should be suit preference, of course, but the additional reason Susan could underlead without worrying about the overtricks was that she had doubled four spades. Overtricks were then irrelevant, of course, so the underlead became much easier!

In today’s pairs deal, as North-South had at least 34 points, North did not look for a suit contract. Instead, he was relying on power to make a slam in no-trump when one in a suit might be scuppered by bad breaks. With even a slightly weaker hand, or with the spades and diamonds switched, one could make a good case for bidding Stayman, then offering a choice of slams with a call of five no-trump, prepared to play diamonds, spades or no-trump.

On a power auction, a spade lead looked unattractive: Indeed, it would have given declarer his 12th trick here. West sensibly led a passive heart 10, aiming to give nothing away. Declarer could place the heart queen to his right, so he called for dummy’s heart king. He then played the spade ace and another spade. When East threw a low heart, declarer still put in the spade jack from hand, giving up the loser to facilitate a subsequent squeeze.

West won and exited with a heart, taken by dummy’s ace. Declarer cashed the spade king, then ran diamonds, ending in dummy. In the four-card ending, as West had only discarded one spade and East had not parted with the heart queen, neither defender could hold four clubs. So declarer’s lowly club seven was sure to score the last trick. Declarer made two spades, two hearts, four diamonds and, finally, four clubs to make his contract.

In effect, declarer played to squeeze both hands out of their club guard, even though he knew only one of them could have the suit under control.

After East’s pre-emptive raise in clubs, South followed a somewhat illogical sequence. He passed initially because he did not feel like he had enough to compete, but then after North’s second takeout double, he re-evaluated and decided his hand was worth the leap to game in spades.

West led the club king, here asking for count in the suit. When East indicated an even number of cards in clubs, West cashed another round before exiting with a heart. Declarer won in hand to lead the spade queen, running it when West played low. Declarer continued with the spade jack, which was covered by West’s king and dummy’s ace. The 4-1 break presented an additional challenge because the contract now needed more than the favorable diamond break. It also needed West to have at least three hearts plus two or three diamonds.

Declarer carefully cashed both top hearts, a Dentist’s Coup to ensure dummy could not be thrown on lead, then played the diamond ace and king and another diamond. West won the trick and found himself endplayed, with only two trumps and a club remaining in his hand. As a trump exit would have been hopeless, West tried his club. Declarer ruffed in hand and took the marked trump finesse to score up his game.

Note that if it had been East who won the third round of diamonds, West discarding a club, declarer would again have been able to ruff the forced club exit in hand. This would again neutralize West’s trump holding.

On this deal from an English pairs tournament, North-South reached the top spot of six spades. North jumped to four spades over fourth-suit forcing, to show something like 3=5=4=1 shape with extras. He then disclosed his club void and one keycard in response to Blackwood.

Leading a club through the void worked surprisingly well for West here. Declarer could see he probably had three discards for his losing clubs, but he had to lose the likely trump trick at a time when the defense could not cash the club ace.

So, after ruffing the club, South called for the spade queen. When East covered, South let it hold, while dummy still had a trump to take care of a club continuation. East returned a trump, but with the diamonds coming in, declarer was home.

Had the spade queen held, declarer would have reason to fear repeating the finesse, lest West turn up with the king. One option would have been to ruff another club in dummy and play on diamonds, hoping the hand with three trumps also had three diamonds. Of course, declarer would also pick up a doubleton spade king along his way. That would fail today: East would ruff the third diamond and cash the club ace.

If the spade queen holds, it is better to ruff out the hearts. Cash the heart ace-king and ruff a heart, then ruff a club to dummy and ruff another heart with the spade jack. Next cash the spade ace, cross to the diamond king and throw the last club on the long heart.

On today’s deal, North-South reached the wrong contract without doing anything unreasonable in the auction. South had soft values in his doubletons and an awkward rebid after opening one club, so he got his values off his chest at his first turn to speak with a strong no-trump opening bid. Most experts would follow this approach — the only issue being whether they felt guilty or happy about it!

Now North transferred to spades and offered a choice of games with three no-trump, where they played. After a low heart lead, South’s first task was to divine the heart layout. The percentage move in this scenario might be to play small, the logic being that it is a blind guess which play to make if West has led from five, but West is less likely to have underled ace-fourth than queen-fourth. Still, our hero guessed right by calling for the king, but he was not yet home.

Declarer could have played for both diamond honors onside, but that line seemed unattractive to him. An alternative was to play a club to the king and advance the spade three; however, West would be unlikely to duck after his partner’s encouraging signal at trick one.

So declarer ran his clubs, hoping to bring about some pressure, and West was inexorably squeezed without the count. Having to keep all his hearts, lest declarer simply knock out the spade ace, West pitched a spade, then two diamonds, hoping East had the guarded jack. Declarer then ran the diamonds and emerged with an overtrick.

When presented with a problem hand, you tend to look for an artificial solution. In real life, no one rings a bell to persuade you to concentrate. Consider this deal from a recent tournament.

North had already done well by not driving to game. West led the heart nine to the king, and East cashed the heart queen, then the ace, suggesting mild suit preference for clubs. West pitched an encouraging diamond, so East shifted to a diamond to the ace. West returned a club, and declarer claimed. Who goofed?

West “knew” declarer had five spades, two club winners and two diamonds. How could he keep declarer from scoring the diamonds? West must win the first diamond and return the suit. Now declarer has no entries to diamonds outside the trump suit. When spades turn out to be 4-1, South’s only chance is a double finesse in clubs, which does not work today.

Note: West must throw a diamond to prevent declarer from being able to cash two tricks in the suit; and at trick four, East must shift to a diamond for West to return the suit. A club shift would immediately be fatal to the defense, but if East plays a trump instead, declarer should still succeed.

South plays three rounds of trumps, ending in dummy, then advances the club jack, covered by the queen and ace. After drawing West’s last trump, South leads a diamond. West can duck once, but he is endplayed on the second round of diamonds. Then whichever minor he plays will be fatal.

After South had gone down in his slam, North pointed out the flaw in his partner’s logic. Can you outplay declarer?

When North opened with a forcing club, South bid then jumped in spades to show a long and at least semisolid suit. A couple of cue-bids followed, then Key-card Blackwood. When North located two key-cards opposite, he settled for six spades, and West led the heart queen.

That lead made establishing the clubs a little more problematic (after a trump lead, declarer can draw trumps, then use the diamond and heart entries to establish clubs, even against the 4-1 break). So South won his heart king and sensibly led a diamond to the king, taken with the ace. East returned a trump, and South won this in hand. A diamond to the queen, then the heart ace for a diamond discard, were followed by a heart ruff to hand. Declarer ruffed his last diamond with the spade queen, but now he was locked in dummy and needed both opponents to follow to dummy’s top clubs. When East ruffed the second, the slam was sunk.

As North remarked, South could have coped with the possibility of a 4-1 club break, if he had planned better. After losing to the diamond ace at trick two and winning the trump return, he can re-enter dummy with a top club. Now South’s second club is discarded on the heart ace. After a club ruff, then a spade to the queen and another club ruff, he has set up dummy’s suit. After drawing trumps, the diamond queen is the entry to run the clubs and claim the rest.