From the Silodor Open Pairs in Philadelphia last year, this challenge for both declarer and the defense saw Simon Cope and Peter Crouch, the eventual winners of the event, emerge on top.

In three no-trump after the spade nine lead, Crouch discouraged, perhaps suggesting he had the heart king. Declarer won the queen and decided that the right approach was to start with the club finesse. So he played the club king and a club to the jack, which held. Relieved, declarer could take the diamond finesse, thinking that if it lost to the diamond queen, he could reassess what to do.

To his pleasure, the diamond jack won as well. Declarer could now lead a heart to the ace, and rather than cashing the club ace (which would have squeezed his hand), he played a second diamond. He planned to score two spades, one heart, four diamonds and two clubs.

However, he was shocked when East showed out, and his plans collapsed; ducking the first diamond was very nice defense by Cope (West).

As usual, with the sight of all four hands, South can do much better; indeed, three no-trump is cold. Admittedly, though, you need to make the inspired move of laying down the diamond king at trick two — not obvious by any means! If the defenders win the first or second diamond, you set up diamonds using the club reentry to your hand. If they duck twice, you play on clubs and take four tricks there.

Neil Silverman and Robert Lebi have each represented their countries, the U.S. and Canada, respectively, but they were playing together in Philadelphia last spring. Here, Silverman had an opportunity to test his skills after Lebi had shown a distributional raise in hearts by his jump to three hearts at his first turn. Modern expert technique is tending to an approach in which most limit raises start with a cue-bid. Accordingly, the jump raise has morphed over the years from a forcing raise to a limit raise to a pre-emptive raise. These days, though, many use the jump raise as somewhere between a limit raise and a pre-emptive raise.

Silverman bid on to five hearts over five diamonds. After the lead of the diamond king, East went up with the ace, planning to continue the attack on diamonds. Declarer ruffed and led the club 10 from hand (just in case) to dummy’s queen. When that held, he ran the heart queen, covered all around, then drove out the club ace. West now played a second diamond, and Silverman pitched a club from hand, leaving the defense helpless. Whoever won the diamond would have to lead a spade or diamond. Declarer could ruff the diamond in dummy and pitch a spade from hand, then advance the heart nine and bring hearts in for no loser.

If East had been able to win the second diamond, declarer could have adopted the same approach, but would have needed the spade finesse to work.

These days in almost every auction where the opponents bid or double, it is possible for responder to play transfers — and today’s deal from the Silodor Open Pairs in Philadelphia last year was no exception. The auction might have developed in a similar fashion, with South declaring three diamonds, if West had made a pre-emptive jump to two spades, but his initial call of two hearts showed six spades of indeterminate range.

The question of how many tricks South would emerge with in three diamonds had a slightly surprising answer, though. You’d expect West to lead a doubleton club and South to take East’s queen, draw trumps in two rounds, then set up a club for the ninth trick.

Instead, East managed to throw an intriguing diversion at the first trick when he played the club king, trying to suggest a different lie of that suit to declarer.

It worked to perfection! South was now sure West had three clubs and six spades, and clearly at least three hearts from the bidding. So she drew just one round of trumps with the ace and played a second club. East won the queen and could have played for the spade ruff, but that would have produced only four tricks. Instead, he cashed the heart king as West gave count, then played a third club. Declarer guessed to discard a spade, and West ruffed in with the jack and played the spade ace and a second spade to give partner the ruff and set the hand.

This week’s deals are all linked directly or indirectly to the use of the cue-bid in modern bidding.

In days of yore, cue-bidding the opponents’ suit was typically the first step in a slam try, and the call promised a control in their suit. These days, as jump raises of partner’s suit are used to pre-empt rather than to show values, the cue-bid must be subverted to promise fit and values. Hence the use of the term “unassuming cue-bid” — the call does not promise a control in the opponents’ suit.

Today’s auction sees North promise fit and values, and when South denies any extras, the partnership can stop in two hearts. However, even that may prove to be too high after the lead of the diamond five.

Imagine declarer ducking East’s diamond 10 at trick one. He wins the diamond return with his ace and next crosses to dummy with a trump to lead a club toward his king. Whether East plays high or low, South can establish the 13th club without letting West on play for the killing shift to the spade jack.

That looks straightforward enough; can you see the defensive wrinkle that might lead to the defeat of the contract if you aren’t careful? If you play the diamond four from dummy at trick one, East can figure out to play low. (His partner has either the doubleton five or his actual holding.) Now you can no longer keep West off play, and if he can find the top spade shift, it will defeat the contract.

All this week, we are looking at different uses of the cue-bid in modern bidding. Part of the problem with deciphering how the call should be interpreted is that the word “cue-bid” is used in many different contexts. How are you to know what’s going on? Is the call an ask, a statement, a control or something else?

A good general rule is that any bid of the opponents’ suit above three no-trump promises a control. Any bid of the opponents’ suit below three no-trump, if that call does not come on the first round of the auction, is looking for a stopper for no-trump until it is proven that this meaning does not apply.

Here, therefore, North’s two-spade call asks for a spade stopper, and South is happy to oblige. When West leads a small heart against three no-trump, South must resist the knee-jerk reaction to finesse. That is the greedy play — and one you might consider at pairs. But if South yields to temptation, East will win the heart king and shift to spades, and down goes the contract.

Instead, declarer can avoid that risk by winning the heart ace and playing the king and ace of diamonds. Then when the bad break comes to light, he can play on clubs and knock out the club ace. West will win the third round and play a heart, but declarer is home free now, with the heart queen serving as an entry to his master diamond. The contract will be in jeopardy only against very unfriendly breaks in both minors.

We have established that in mid-auction you tend to bid no-trump if you have the opponent’s suit under control, but you can ask partner for help by cue-bidding that suit. But what if the opponents have bid or shown two suits? Does a call ask or state?

The general rule is that when there are two danger suits, you bid where you live. So on the auction shown today, South’s three-heart call shows a heart stop and, by inference he can’t have too much in spades or he would have bid no-trump himself.

North’s three-spade call suggests a half-stopper in spades or three small cards, since (once again) he would bid no-trump if he could, and would eschew no-trump with short spades.

When South bites the bullet and bids three no-trump, West leads out the top spades, suggesting to South that spades are 4-4; but whether they are breaking or not, South must find his best chance to bring in clubs for five tricks. If he loses a trick to the club queen, he will surely go down, since West has an entry to the spades in the heart ace.

With West having nine cards in the majors, it is correct to play East for the club queen. To do that, declarer crosses to the diamond king in dummy and runs the club jack.

This play picks up the 4-1 club breaks where East has the queen (of which there are four) while losing to the singleton club queen in West, a far less likely case.

Modern bidding has advanced tremendously from the early days in the area of cue-bidding. When I was growing up, cue-bids were reserved for aces; gradually one learned to cue-bid kings and secondary shortness. But it was the Italians who managed to formalize cue-bidding to a point where bypassing a suit almost denies a control of any sort in that suit.

Today’s deal shows both the upside and downside of that approach. After North-South set spades as trump, with North raising to three spades to suggest some extras, South cue-bid his club ace. North now showed a heart control, bypassing the diamonds; South knew there was no diamond control, so he closed up shop in four spades.

Of course, West was listening to the auction, too: he led a low diamond, and suddenly four spades was in jeopardy. Can you see how the defenders should prevail?

When declarer played low from dummy, East put in the jack, led a low diamond to his partner’s king, won the third diamond with his ace and led the 13th diamond. Whatever declarer does now — and presumably ruffing low is correct — West will score his spade queen sooner or later. If East cashes his diamond ace at trick two, the trump promotion is unobtainable.

Does this mean North-South did something wrong? I don’t think so, since if you bid every hand correctly and pay off to the opponents leading accurately, you will do better overall than if you hit and hope on every deal.

The phrase “advance cue-bid” generally refers to a sequence in which one hand has limited itself, typically by a non-forcing call or an opening bid or rebid at no-trump. After such a bid, new suits above three no-trump agree your partner’s suit — rather than suggesting an earlier misbid or a mis-sorting of your hand.

In today’s auction, North opens one no-trump, and South shows a forcing hand with hearts after the two-spade overcall. (North-South are playing Lebensohl — see www.larryco.com/ bridge-articles/lebensohl.)

Now North’s four-club call sets hearts as trump and suggests some extras and suitability for hearts, over which South has enough to be interested in slam, but no spade or diamond control. He solves his problem by jumping to five hearts, trying to suggest a hand like the one he has.

North concludes the auction by bidding six hearts, hoping he can avoid a diamond lead, or that in the worst-case scenario partner will produce the jack or queen there. After the spade lead, South starts drawing trumps and discovers East has three hearts, thus not too many cards in the minors.

He takes out all the trumps, then leads the club 10 (tempting a cover) to the queen. His plan is to come to hand with the club king and try to run the suit. This line works against a singleton jack or nine in East, whereas leading the king initially gives a nasty guess on the second round, while leading low to the ace on the first round blocks the suit.

This week’s themed deals all have something in common in the auction. In each case, either North or South produce a cue-bid, an imprecise term that covers a multitude of evils.

Some cue-bids are hard to interpret, but today’s deal features a gadget that has moved into the modern repertoire and meets with almost universal approval — the splinter. A jump in a new suit in a sequence where a call one level lower would be forcing, the splinter can be played as setting partner’s suit as trump. It simultaneously shows slam suitability and shortage in the suit in question. In today’s deal, since two hearts would have been forcing, North can show club fit and a singleton heart by his three-heart call, after which the auction progresses naturally to slam.

West finds the best lead against six clubs, a trump. Declarer can see that if either minor behaves, he can come to 12 tricks in the form of seven trump tricks and five winners from spades and diamonds, or six trump tricks, two spades and four diamonds.

If both minors misbehave, however, he must set up a heart. The right moment to do that is now, so he wins the club ace and leads a heart. When East plays low, declarer puts in the jack, expecting that East might not have been able to duck the ace here. Once the jack forces the ace, declarer has plenty of time to ruff out the diamonds, then finish drawing trumps and emerge with six trump tricks, two spades, one heart and three diamonds.