Our themed deals this week all feature tackling suits where we are missing both the queen and the jack. Often the subsidiary cards influence our line of attack, and today’s deal is no exception.

Bringing home three no-trump after the lead of an interior club won’t be easy; we need to overcome not one but two hurdles. The first essential move is to duck the initial club lead. There is no shift we are particularly afraid of, but if clubs are 5-2 (as they are here), we may find we need to cut the defenders’ communications with a duck on the first round.

Winning the club continuation in hand, we then need to consider which major suit to go after, and the decision is pretty close. In favor of playing on hearts is the presence of better intermediates. But (and it is a big but) we need to exploit those intermediates to the fullest by leading to the heart nine. This succeeds not only against any 3-3 break, but also whenever West has both heart honors, and critically when he has a doubleton heart honor.

Today, east will win his heart honor, but has no third club to lead. The best he can do is shift to a high diamond spot, to the 10 and ace. In due course, we can unblock hearts, come back to hand in spades, and run the hearts. That brings us to four hearts, one diamond and two tricks in each of the black suits, nine in all.

Notice that playing the king of hearts, then the nine, will see us lose two heart tricks.

Today’s deal is part of a weekly series where we look at variations in the play and tackle suit combinations that exhibit a broadly similar theme.

This week, all the critical suits are missing the queen and jack. Here, a simple Stayman sequence saw South reach three no-trump after showing hearts, while dummy had implied spade length. West was happy enough with his heart sequence to lead it, and declarer won the first trick for fear of a club shift, then saw that he could probably make his contract if he could establish either an extra trick from spades or diamonds.

It seemed like the diamonds could wait; so declarer immediately went after spades, running the eight from hand around to East, who continued with hearts. Declarer ducked, won the next heart, then played the ace, king and a third diamond to East. That player could cash his last diamond winner and exit in clubs, but South took his last chance when he led a spade to the 10 and cashed out that suit for nine tricks.

Notice that declarer led the spade eight rather than the nine from hand because he did not want West to cover — as a general rule, leading the lower of touching cards toward dummy is more likely to get a defender to duck.

Also, it is worth noting that West did have a chance to set the game. If he had covered the first spade, declarer would have been held to two tricks in that suit, so long as the defenders played accurately thereafter.

I have been experimenting this year with a new category of themed deals. Every month I will run one week’s worth of deals with a common theme, generally during the play. This week’s deals all feature a problem for declarer or defense where the critical suit is missing both the queen and the jack.

Today’s deal is one fairly typical example of a sub-genre of the theme. Both North and South had a series of delicate decisions: South’s re-opening double looked clear, then North took an aggressive position, after which South was very close to driving to slam. Eventually he decided to respect his partner’s signoff. But make up your own mind how you would play five diamonds on a top club lead from West.

After that lead, South had a classic opportunity to take out insurance. In six diamonds, declarer would surely have played for either hearts or diamonds to break; but in five, he could virtually ensure his contract with a simple example of a safety play. By winning the club ace and leading a low diamond to East’s five and his own six, he could guarantee losing no more than one diamond and one spade. If West could win the first diamond, then declarer could guarantee being able to draw trumps and ruff the fourth heart safely in dummy, losing just one further trick in spades.

Admittedly, the lie of the cards was remarkably hostile, but not altogether unexpected given the initial pre-empt by West. And if you can guard against bad breaks, why not do so?

The most popular win at the 1997 Dallas Spring Nationals was in the final event, the Open Swiss Teams. Edgar Kaplan had been battling cancer for a couple of years and had not been able to play all that much, but he paired up with Geir Helgemo to win the event.

Kaplan was dummy when Helgemo produced the play of the year. Put yourself in the South seat and cover up the East and West cards to see if you, too, can win a brilliancy prize.

Richard Pavlicek opened a weak two-bid in hearts, raised to game by Ralph Katz. Helgemo tried six diamonds, and all passed. Helgemo ruffed the heart lead, drew trumps and inferred that the hearts were surely 5-4, so Pavlicek probably had a little extra distribution for his bidding.

Since the contract would be easy if spades were 3-3, what if Pavlicek had five clubs, so that spades were 4-2? There was only one remote chance to play for, and Helgemo took it. He led a spade to the seven, playing West for a doubleton eight. Katz won the jack and returned the five — and Helgemo ran this to dummy’s nine!

This deal produced awe from the other professional players in the event when they heard about it. Duplicate boards were in play, but few had found the initial move in the spade suit, and no-one else had had the nerve to make the second play.

Of course, if East had played the eight on the first round, declarer would have had some losing options.

Bridge players are all too inclined to blame other people for their own misfortunes. At a long-ago Vanderbilt Trophy match, having scored up my own set, I lingered within earshot of some of my Texan colleagues, who were clearly trying to allocate culpability amongst themselves.

When today’s deal came up for discussion, the least tolerant of the four had brought home four hearts after his table’s West had led a trump. He had clearly expected to pick up a swing here. As he said: “After West led a trump, I won in dummy and led a low club. West got in again and played a second trump. Now I cashed my four diamonds, pitching the losing club from dummy, and took a ruff on the board. I thought I played it well. But did you find the trump lead?” he asked his team-mates. “We didn’t,” came the response. “After a spade lead, declarer ruffed the second spade low, then gave up a club. East led a low spade, forcing declarer to ruff high. South then had to be extremely careful; he had to lead a trump to dummy — playing for the 4-1 trump break — then cash three diamonds, ending in the North hand. (It doesn’t work to finish in hand, as the defenders will get a second trump play in prematurely.)

“Finally, he ruffed a spade high, ruffed his fourth diamond in dummy and ruffed a spade in hand. Frankly, I think our declarer had a harder task than you!”

For once, there was no response.

In today’s auction, after spades were agreed, South’s four-heart call was a cue-bid. North inquired about key-cards, and his five-no-trump call confirmed possession of them all. South then showed the heart king by bidding that suit, but North could infer South’s hearts weren’t solid (or he would already have bid the grand slam), so he signed off in six spades.

West led the club queen, taken in dummy. Declarer cashed the heart ace, then the trump ace. After both opponents followed, declarer was on the point of playing the heart king when he foresaw the problems that might arise from a bad heart break. Revising his plan, he continued instead with a low heart. West took this with the jack and, in response to East’s discard, exited with a diamond, won by South’s ace.

Having registered East’s shortage in hearts, declarer asked himself what could be done if East had also started with four trumps headed by the 10. Demonstrating that this problem could be overcome, he called for dummy’s trump nine and overtook it with his jack. Next, after ruffing a heart with dummy’s trump queen, he led the spade five and simply covered East’s card. After drawing the last trump, South claimed the balance — making four trumps, four hearts, a heart ruff and three tricks in the minors.

Declarer’s line wasn’t fool-proof against 3-2 hearts with West having the length, plus a bad trump break, but it covered almost all the bases that could be covered.

It is painful enough when your own bad play earns you a poor result, but it can be especially galling when your opponents appear to have done the wrong thing and then score well, as in today’s deal. It seemed that North-South had misjudged the auction to reach a failing contract. But it did not work out that way.

At his third turn, North believed he was facing extra shape and values, so he eschewed playing three no-trump, instead heading for the club game. The no-trump game might have failed, but five clubs was hardly a comfortable spot either.

West led the spade king and continued with the ace and a third spade when he found his partner with a doubleton. Declarer ruffed with dummy’s club jack, and East was unable to over-ruff. In order to keep four cards in each of dummy’s and declarer’s side-suits, he decided to under-ruff.

South now drew the right conclusion from East’s play. He played three rounds of hearts before leading trumps, ruffing the third heart in dummy. The ace and king of clubs brought down West’s queen. Now South could lead out his remaining trumps to squeeze East in the red suits and bring home the game.

Had West shifted to a diamond after cashing the top spades, South would probably have worked out why the defenders had failed to try for a possible trump trick. But perhaps East could have given false count in spades; then declarer might not have realized what was going on, and would have taken the trump finesse.

There are several points of interest about today’s deal that have a general application. The first is that despite his small doubleton, there is no viable alternative to South’s opening one no-trump. When in the middle of the range, you must normally open one no-trump. Occasionally, though, you may be able to up-value or down-value hands at one end of the range or the other if they seem inappropriate for opening one no-trump because of their honor structure.

Second, North does best to transfer to the major, then offer a choice of games, rather than showing his diamonds at his second turn. With a singleton, or with maybe an ace more — so that slam isn’t entirely out of the picture — I might feel differently.

Declaring three no-trump, how should South judge the play on the lead of a low heart? The first thing to do is to put up the jack — if you don’t, you will get no use from that card. (With the heart nine in hand instead of the six, you would play low from dummy, by the way.)

When the jack holds, don’t relax prematurely! If you play a diamond, East will rush up with the ace to clear the hearts, and you will find that eight tricks are the limit today. Instead, finesse in clubs, knocking out the entry from the danger hand. West does best to win and shift to a low spade, and again you must be careful. Win the ace and clear diamonds; now you can ensure nine tricks for your side no matter how the opponents’ cards lie.

Everybody knows a quick peek is worth two finesses, but most of us would be happy to play a slam that depended solely on one of two finesses succeeding. That converts to a 75 percent chance — good enough, but hardly money in the bank. If you could improve your odds over that, you would not turn your nose up at the opportunity, would you?

Let’s look at a position that reflects precisely these chances. You play six hearts when North offers his partner a choice of small slam on a hand where the matching distributions mean that, despite his surplus of values and trumps, declarer must work hard to hold his minor losers to one.

After a spade lead, declarer draws trumps in three rounds and eliminates the spades. How should he advance from there? He can improve his odds over the simple diamond finesse followed by the club finesse. He should play the ace, king and a third diamond, eschewing the finesse since there is no need to take it. If West wins the diamond queen, declarer can claim the rest, whatever suit that player returns, since he must lead a club into declarer’s tenace or give a ruff-sluff.

But if East had held the diamond queen, he would be forced to open up clubs, and declarer would let the lead run around to dummy. Then, unless West had both the club queen and 10, declarer would avoid a club loser. In other words, this line succeeds unless not two but three cards are badly placed.