Today’s deal saw West get off to an unfortunate lead against three no-trump, requiring some nice defense from East to defeat the game.

When North raised South’s two-no-trump opening to game, West might have led a heart, but he reasonably opted for the more passive choice of the diamond eight. There is no real likelihood that hearts will be more fertile ground than diamonds, and leading from honor-fourth into a strong hand is more likely to cost a trick than strike gold.

When declarer played low from dummy at trick one, East refrained from contributing the queen. His logic was that he wanted to minimize the later entries to dummy in diamonds by preserving his honor over dummy’s holding.

When South won the first trick with his jack and advanced the club queen, East made his second good play by ducking. Had he won, South would have been able to drive out the club ace, with the diamond entry to dummy remaining in place. As it was, when South played a second club, East won and shifted to spades (again, a diamond would have allowed declarer to create an extra entry to dummy and set up the clubs). When West won his spade jack and reverted to diamonds, declarer put in the 10, but East covered, and declarer now had no chance but to rely on spades breaking.

When that suit split 4-2, he could take no more than three diamonds, one club and two tricks in each major.

In today’s deal, South’s four-club call shows a decent five-card suit. Thereafter, cue-bidding sees North use Key-card Blackwood and drive to slam. West leads the diamond king; after winning with the diamond ace and seeing East follow, how do you plan to make another 11 tricks for the contract?

If spades break no worse than 3-1, you can draw trumps and run the clubs, discarding diamonds from dummy. If trumps are 2-2, you will make an overtrick by ruffing two diamonds in dummy. By contrast, if East has four trumps, the contract looks almost impossible to make.

However, when it is West who has four trumps, you need to be very careful. In that scenario, with the cards as shown, the only way to make the contract is to ruff a heart at trick two. Not until then can you play the trump ace.

When East discards, you continue with a low trump and cover West’s card in dummy. After ruffing a second heart with the queen, you will lead the trump seven and again cover West’s card. After drawing the last trump and throwing a diamond from hand, you will have taken the first seven tricks. At this point, the clubs will provide the five tricks you need to make the contract.

Note that if you played a trump to the ace at trick two, the contract fails because dummy is an entry short for the two heart ruffs you need as the cards lie.

When you pick up an 11-count with honors in your long suits, it presents the dilemma of whether to pass or to open.

Today’s deal comes from a recent Australian event, and it illustrates the advantage of getting busy in the bidding at an early stage. Opening can backfire if your partner takes you too seriously or if the opponents buy the contract. But sometimes by not opening, your partnership can be effectively shut out of the auction. Let’s look at what happened at two tables.

In one room, Tony Burke sat North. He judged well to sacrifice in four spades when his partner had passed over four hearts — you can judge for yourself whether South’s decision was well conceived. Four spades went one down, while East/West could have made four hearts without a problem, losing just two diamonds and a trump.

By contrast, at the table where East passed, Tony Nunn — one of Australia’s most talented players — opened the South hand two spades, and North raised to game, thereby winning the battle. But could he win the war?

Four spades seems to be one top trick short, but Nunn pulled off a bit of daylight robbery. He won the diamond lead in dummy, then led the club queen to the two, nine and ace. After winning the diamond return in dummy, Nunn led the club three. An unsuspecting East played low since, after all, Nunn’s nine had all the hallmarks of a singleton — and the six won the trick!

When South hears his partner open then raise spades, it suggests a minimum hand, typically with four trumps. So South decides that jumping directly to small slam is more likely to attract a favorable lead than result in missing a playable grand slam.

West has a natural diamond lead; declarer wins the ace and takes the trump finesse. When West wins the king and leads another diamond, the slam now depends on not losing a heart trick. South can simply try to guess which opponent has the heart queen, but one should try to postpone a decision of this kind until the last possible moment.

The idea is to play on side suits first in the hope of finding out something about the distribution. Sometimes one cannot discover anything useful, but it should cost nothing to try.

Accordingly, South uses dummy’s trump entry to ruff dummy’s last diamond, then plays three rounds of clubs. He is rewarded when West discards a diamond on the third round of that suit. At this point, declarer knows that East started with precisely six clubs and two spades. Since East has followed three times in diamonds, East could not have started with more than two hearts. If East began with more than three diamonds, he has room in his hand for at most one heart.

Whatever the case, South knows West has more hearts than East. Thus the odds are that West has the heart queen, so he finesses through West in hearts. When the finesse succeeds, the slam comes home.

When North raises South’s opening bid of one spade to two, South knows that slam is highly unlikely, but there is bound to be at least decent play for game. So South just ups and bids game in spades, and then must try to make it on the lead of the heart king.

South should expect to lose a heart and a diamond, so must hold his club losers to one. It may look natural to go after diamonds, but that would be a mistake; if the defenders can dislodge the only sure entry to dummy, declarer may not be able to maximize his play in clubs.

Instead, South wins the heart ace and draws three rounds of trumps. He must then resist the temptation to exit passively in hearts; again, the defenders might go after declarer’s diamond entry to dummy before declarer is ready for this to happen.

Instead, South leads a low club towards dummy’s queen, hoping West holds the king. If so, declarer’s queen and ace of clubs will take tricks, and he can trump his last club in dummy if necessary. But East takes dummy’s queen with his ace and returns a heart to his partner’s queen, and West now shifts to a diamond to East’s ace. East returns a second diamond, and dummy wins with the king.

The time has come to try the second finesse in clubs. Declarer leads a low club from dummy and puts in the 10 from his own hand. When it holds the trick, South can cash the club ace and ruff his last club with dummy’s remaining trump.

Today’s deal occurred at matchpoints, which might partially explain South’s imaginative rebid of one no-trump. His partner was somewhat less than complimentary after South failed in his contract of three no-trump, West leading the spade 10.

Declarer called for dummy’s spade two, and East took the trick with his king and shifted to a low club. South played low, and West’s queen won. The club return was ducked to declarer’s now-bare ace, and he crossed to dummy with a spade to the queen to run the jack of diamonds. West allowed this to hold, but took the next diamond and shifted to the heart nine. Now declarer was cut off from his hand, and took only seven tricks.

Observe the difference if you play dummy’s spade queen at trick one. If it holds, declarer will always make at least two spades, a heart, five diamonds and a club. On the actual layout, East would take the spade queen with the king and shift to a low club. Be careful: If you duck the club at trick two, the defenders may find the unpleasant shift to the heart 10!

But your counter to the club switch is to rise with the ace, then cross to dummy in spades, to run the diamond jack. Whenever West takes his king, the defense can only cash two clubs. If West shifts to a heart, you win with the ace and cross to hand with the spade jack to run the good diamonds. You take two spades, a heart, five diamonds and a club.

Today’s deal sees South able to respond two no-trump to one heart to show a balanced game force, rather than a game-forcing heart raise. This has no significant impact on the final contract — had South responded two diamonds, North might have raised the suit, letting South rebid three no-trump. In any event, when West leads a fourth-highest spade against the no-trump game, South wins cheaply, after which he must decide which red suit to go after, and what is the best way to develop that suit.

It looks logical to play on diamonds rather than hearts, doesn’t it? With so many combined honors in the eight-card fit, it would appear declarer needs only to find a normal lie of the diamonds to bring in four tricks. Leading the jack from hand will fail if East began with four diamonds to the king-10, so declarer leads low to the queen, West producing the five. (Low to the ace is also reasonable.)

When the diamond eight appears from East, the warning bell should go off! Declarer crosses back to hand with a top club and takes care not to lead the diamond jack, since East might have been sneakily contributing the eight from K-10-8-6! Instead, he leads low to dummy’s seven, assuming West follows with the six. Should this lose to East, declarer has a comfortable route to at least 10 tricks. If the diamond seven wins, as here, declarer should probably just set up his ninth trick from spades.

You blast into the spade slam, against which West leads the club king. Is there anything to be wary of when planning to make 12 tricks?

If trumps are not extremely hostile, you will have 12 easy tricks: six trumps, three hearts, two diamonds and a club. So, your concern should be overcoming a potential 4-0 break in spades. As a preparation against that possibility, ruff a club at trick two, to try to guard against the diagrammed layout.

Next, cash the trump king. If everyone follows, you can claim your contract. If West has four trumps, you will need him to have precisely 4=3=2=4 shape. You continue with the queen and ace of trumps, then ruff a second club. After cashing the diamond ace-king, plus the three heart winners ending in dummy, you ruff a third club at trick 12. West will take the last trick by ruffing your diamond loser. You will have scored six trumps and six plain-suit winners for your contract. But notice that if you had not ruffed a club at trick two, you would not have had the entries to ruff three clubs in hand.

Finally, if it turned out that East had the four trumps, then you would need him not to be too drastically short in any of the side suits. The best order of play to follow would be to cash the top diamonds, then the top hearts, ending in dummy. Now you take a club ruff, then the queen and ace of trumps, followed by leading a fourth club from dummy to make your last trump, whatever East does.

Today’s deal is from Andrew Robson’s latest themed collection, “Counting and Card Placement”, available at baronbarclay.com.

Andrew is one of the top European players. One of his specialities is explaining the game in simple terms. He is much in demand as a teacher and lecturer, and his source material is excellent.

Consider today’s deal, where you have driven to slam in somewhat cavalier fashion after partner’s limit raise in hearts. Of course, the club king wasn’t the card you had hoped to see in dummy — you would happily have traded it for the heart jack.

As declarer you receive the lead of the club two, third and fifth and take the queen with your king. What should be your plan to play hearts for only one loser?

You can do nothing about 4-0 hearts, but if one defender has the bare ace, it seems slightly more likely to be West, since he appears to have the long clubs. Rightly or wrongly, you cross to hand with the diamond ace and lead a heart to the 10, king and ace.

Back comes a spade; plan your next move.

It is best to win the ace, cross to dummy by leading the diamond 10 to the jack, then play a trump. When East follows with the eight, the odds of finessing are clearly better than playing the queen. Why? Because we are weighing up either a singleton 10 or jack with West — in which case he would be forced to follow with that card — against doubleton jack-10. Each of the singletons is almost as likely as one specific doubleton, so the odds are almost 2-to-1 in favor of finessing.