In today’s deal from a team game, one pair came back to score up with what they considered a normal result in their game contract: North had opened a weak no-trump and played four spades on a heart lead. He could not find a way to succeed after that start, but was disappointed to lose a big swing when four spades came home from the South seat in the other room on the auction shown. And it all came down to the play to trick one.

When you have this combined heart holding, you are happy to have the suit led around to — rather than through — your tenace. You are gifted a second trick in the suit, but that will not do you any good today. One discard is completely irrelevant in comparison to the avoidance issues in the minor suits.

See what happens if South wins East’s heart queen with the ace. After drawing trumps, declarer will run the diamond nine. East can win with the king and return a heart to West’s king, then a club shift will beat the contract.

At the table, South appreciated the necessity of keeping the danger hand, West, off lead. By allowing East’s heart queen to hold, communications between the defensive hands were cut. East could not effectively attack clubs from his side of the table. South won the heart return, drew trumps, then ran the diamond nine. East could win in either case the first or second round, but the defenders were limited to one club trick in any case.

Italy’s Andrea Manno had to emulate Hercule Poirot to succeed in his slam at the 2014 Cavendish, held in Monte Carlo.

Manno ended in slam after East had opened one diamond, guaranteeing an unbalanced hand, since he would have opened one club with a balanced hand. West selected the club four as his opening lead (lowest from an odd number or third-highest from an even number) — a fine choice, since on a diamond lead, declarer will take 12 tricks without breaking a sweat. He can set up spades to pitch his club losers, even if he loses a spade trick.

On the club lead, Manno rose with dummy’s ace and took due notice of East’s 10. Declarer cashed the spade ace next, then set about drawing trumps. When East showed up with four hearts, that meant that he surely held at least nine cards in the red suits. The club 10 at trick one suggested a doubleton; it could not be a singleton, since in that case West would have led the king from the king-queen, and not the four. And if East had three clubs, East must also have a singleton spade, in which case the contract could not be made, since there would be no entry to dummy’s long spade.

This allowed Manno to deduce East’s 2-4-5-2 shape, and he also knew East had a maximum of 9 points in the minors. To have enough material for even the slightest of opening bids, East surely had to hold the spade queen. So Manno cashed the spade king, and down came the queen.

Helen Sobel was one of the world’s best players of her generation. When she declared three no-trump here, West led the spade seven, his partner’s suit. Sobel made two winning plays at the first trick: She called for dummy’s 10, and then she ducked East’s queen.

After taking the spade king continuation with the ace, she played the club queen (hoping the club honors were split). East took this with the king and played the spade nine, taken by Sobel’s jack, while discarding a heart from dummy. Then came the club 10. West won and could do no better than exit with a club, taken by the jack. The diamond ace came next, then a diamond to the queen, and the hand was over. Sobel had two tricks in each major, plus a club and four diamonds.

Note the significance of the play to the first trick. If declarer does not put up the spade 10, East covers the seven with the eight. South must duck, or the spades will eventually be set up, as the defenders still have communications in place in spades. After declarer ducks trick one, if the defenders are careful not to open up hearts, declarer can take no more than eight tricks.

But once declarer puts up the 10, it forces East to cover; otherwise, declarer has a cheap trick while retaining two spade stoppers. Now, by ducking, declarer has effectively severed the defenders’ communications in the spade suit.

Today’s deal shows what appears to be a relatively simple contract of four spades. However, the deal may only appear to be easy because there seem to be five top tricks outside the trump suit and the threat of only three losers (one in each side suit after a top heart lead). But that ignores the risk of the defenders cashing more than one heart if you draw all the trumps; or they may get a ruff or overruff if you don’t draw trumps.

The simplest way to play the hand is to assume trumps will break. After the heart king lead to your ace (ducking might permit the defenders a ruff), the simplest plan is to cash the spade ace and king, then play on clubs.

East can take either the first or second round of clubs, and will play a heart when he does so. Dummy’s remaining trump can now be used to ruff the third heart. East overruffs, but that is the last defensive trick, since there are no trumps out and declarer has the diamond ace as an entry to dummy.

One trap to avoid here is playing three rounds of trumps before playing clubs. If you do so, the defenders may be able to cash one club and three heart tricks, since dummy will be bereft of trumps. Similarly, if you draw fewer than two rounds of trumps before playing two rounds of clubs, with the cards lying as they do in the diagram, West may get a club ruff from the short trumps, then lead hearts to promote a trump trick for his partner.

Whether you have agreed to play high or low cards to encourage the opening lead, you must occasionally send a different kind of message. One possibility is to use suit-preference signals if continuation of the suit led cannot possibly be right — but it is often far from obvious to both players that this is the case.

Today we shall look at the subject of “alarm clocks” at the bridge table. These don’t just say: “Wake up, partner!” Instead, they ask partner neither to continue with the suit led nor to shift to what would otherwise be the normal suit. Does that sound obscure? Maybe, but a relatively recent Rosenblum Trophy produced just such an opportunity. Though East-West were an unfamiliar partnership, they were on the same wavelength when it mattered.

Bruce Rogoff, West, found himself on lead against four spades after Gay Keaveney had chosen to jump to four spades rather than use a transfer. Fortuitously, this meant the hand with a side-suit singleton was not on lead.

When Rogoff led the club king, his partner, Barry Rigal, produced the queen. A discouraging club would have produced a heart shift, so was something else required? Rogoff drew the right conclusion and shifted to a diamond.

Declarer won dummy’s ace and went after trumps; East could take his spade ace to play back a low club to West’s ace for the diamond ruff. Since Rogoff’s teammates had stopped in two spades, making four, this turned out to be a decent swing in instead of a large swing away.

Today’s deal comes from a Common Game event about six months ago, and while it may not show particularly great play, I thought it represented the sort of errors that real people fell into. North-South are actually a very competent pair, but North chose a poor moment to introduce spades instead of making a constructive heart raise — had he done the latter, I would have led a top spade against four hearts.

I chose to lead a trump; declarer won and immediately ruffed a diamond in dummy, then played the ace and another club. The defenders could win that and play a second club, and declarer now had no more than nine tricks.

This is the sort of hand where you might sensibly play for ruffs on a minor suit lead; but after a trump lead, you must play to set up spades. Say the worst happens, and you win the trump in hand to lead a spade. When West plays low, you put up the king. If East now wins the ace to return a trump, you win in dummy and ruff a spade. When an honor appears, you play a trump to the board and pass the spade 10, pitching a minor-suit card and ensuring 10 tricks for your side. This line almost guarantees the contract against anything but an extremely unlucky lie of the spades. You are likely to make at least 10 tricks unless West began with queen-jack-fourth of spades or East started with something like ace-queen-jack-fourth in that suit.

A simple auction sees West on lead with a blind choice against four spades. While a trump would work best, he can hardly be blamed for selecting a diamond as what appears to be his most passive lead option.

Consider your play before contributing a card from dummy. You appear to have one diamond, three hearts and one possible spade loser if you treat South as the master hand. The good news is that your heart losers can be covered by dummy’s trumps.

Your plan should be to ruff two of the heart losers in dummy, so you have to take the opening lead with the diamond ace to avoid surrendering a tempo. Given a second chance, the defenders might shift to spades, after which you would be unable to ruff two hearts in the North hand.

After winning the diamond ace, you should play a small heart from hand without playing any trumps. As a matter of general technique, you can preserve the heart ace as a re-entry to your hand, to facilitate communications. You take West’s spade switch in dummy, cross to hand with the heart ace to ruff a heart low, then come to the club king to ruff a second heart with dummy’s remaining high trump. Then you can re-enter your hand with the club ace to play trumps and drive out the spade queen.

The defenders can force you to ruff a diamond, but you still have enough trumps left to claim the rest.

John Armstrong, who was one of Britain’s top players, died 10 years ago after a highly successful 30-year international career. He was a keen orienteer and a fine pianist, and as a defender he was very good at putting himself into declarer’s mind and giving him a losing option.

The board comes from when Great Britain won the European Championships in Killarney in 1991, and shows both tables contributing to the team’s success.

Both Souths reached six diamonds on the lead of the heart jack. Each won with the ace, drew trumps (East pitching two spades) and took the three top spades. Then they both played a heart to the king and advanced dummy’s last heart.

The Czech East ducked, not wanting to be left on lead, and now when Andrew Robson ruffed, he decided that East’s play indicated that he had the club king.

It would have been a lot simpler to play for the club king onside, but Robson trusted his judgment and played a club to the nine. (Yes, West could have inserted the 10 to give declarer a nasty guess.) East was now end-played to give declarer a ruff-and-discard or play a club for him.

Where John Armstrong was East, when the third heart was led, he rose with the queen (pretending to be a man who did want to be left on lead). Declarer duly ruffed, but was convinced by this play that East did not have the club king. So, he laid down the club ace, then led up to the queen and duly went one down.