In today’s deal, you may want to take West’s cards. Cover up declarer’s hand and your partner’s to see if you can find the critical play to break an apparently cold contract.

With a heart lead looking very unattractive against three no-trump, West elects to lead the diamond three to the five, nine and queen. (Incidentally, the play to this first trick marks declarer with either the eight or 10, plus surely the ace.) South leads a low heart from his hand, and West allows dummy’s queen to take the trick.

South now plays two more rounds of hearts, and you win the third heart cheaply to shift to a low club, more in hope than in expectation. Dummy wins the ace and returns a second club to South’s 10 and your jack.

It would seem that declarer is in excellent shape, since he surely has the diamond ace with an initial 0-5-3-5 shape. It looks as if he is about to set up hearts and finish with three heart tricks, four clubs and two diamonds, which all adds up to nine.

But in fact, you have reached the critical moment in the defense; only one play will set the game, and that is to cash the spade ace. What might declarer discard? If he lets go of a diamond, you exit with a diamond and can cash the king when in with your heart winner. If he pitches anything else, you cash your heart winner and exit with a club. You will collect the diamond king at trick 13 to beat the game.

When East overcalled one spade over one heart, South could easily have passed rather than bidding one no-trump. (Too much of his hand was tied up in spades, in my opinion.) South denied three hearts by his action — with three hearts, he would have made a support double of the overcall.

West led the spade seven, top of his doubleton, against three no-trump, and when East overtook with his eight, declarer saw little point in ducking. He won and played the heart queen, then continued with hearts when East ducked. East took the second round and continued with the spade queen. Again, declarer declined to duck, continuing with a club to the ace to cash dummy’s heart winners, throwing diamonds from hand, while East also pitched a low diamond.

Declarer had planned to try to concede a club to West while keeping East off lead. But when East threw a spade on the second club, declarer rose with the ace and exited with a spade. East could take his three spade winners, but then had to lead away from the diamond king and concede the ninth trick.

Declarer would have been unable to make his contract on the layout seen here if he had let East win either the first or second round of spades. Had he done so, he would been unable to endplay East and would then have had to rely on a finesse in diamonds to make a ninth trick — which would have been unsuccessful as the cards were divided.

In today’s deal, South might have responded four diamonds to North’s cue-bid, since North might just have been trying to find the best fit when holding both red suits. No harm was done, though it resulted in South rather than North being declarer in six spades.

When the defenders led clubs, the duplication of values meant South wasn’t going to find it easy to take a ruff in either hand. Accordingly, the 4-1 trump break did not materially diminish declarer’s chances. He won the club lead and drew trumps in four rounds, East pitching three clubs.

Now whom was declarer going to play for four diamonds? After cashing the diamond ace, declarer decided that East was slightly more likely to have four diamonds than four hearts. However, it was far more convenient for his plans to be in dummy after running the diamonds. So he cashed the diamond king and ran diamonds, coming down to a four-card ending with three hearts and one club in each hand, West holding the same, while East had two cards left in each suit.

The next big decision was whom to play for the heart king. Since West had the length, declarer decided to cash dummy’s remaining club honor and lead the heart eight, planning to let it run. When East played low, so did declarer, and West took his 10 but was endplayed to lead a heart around to South’s queen.

Had East followed with the jack, declarer would have played his queen and finessed against the 10 on the next round.

Mastering the standard suit combinations is something that requires time, trouble and the occasional visit to the textbooks. And it is not always so easy to distinguish one position from the next.

Here South sensibly offered clubs an alternative strain — even the 5-3 fit might have played best if declarer needed to ruff out spades. North was happy to play the suit slam, but after the lead of the heart nine, South saw there was no obvious advantage to playing there — that is, unless declarer went for an endplay rather than attempting to squeeze a third trick out of the spades.

That said, how would you maximize your chances of developing three tricks from the spades? Declarer’s decision to run the spade jack, then later play the ace and king in an attempt to drop the 10, was not a success.

This was a better try than cashing both top spades, I believe, though that would have worked as the cards lie, as would taking two finesses or even leading a low spade toward the jack. But the best technical line is to draw trumps, cash the spade ace and continue with the nine, planning to let it run if East plays low.

You next plan to run the spade jack if West follows with a small card. While this line fails if East blithely plays low on the second round from queen-empty-fourth or even queen-third, this still represents the best odds play. And you could argue that if he does find this defense, he deserves to beat you.

Splinter bids in response to major-suit opening bids help a partnership determine whether they are in the slam zone and whether their cards fit. One style is to play that responder’s double jumps in a new suit are limited by the failure to use the Jacoby two no-trump. Another style says that a jump like one heart – three spades shows an unspecified splinter in the range 10-13 (over which opener can ask or sign off), while the direct jump shows a full opener, and one heart – three no-trump shows the equivalent splinter in spades.

In today’s deal, North-South reached slam, and West looked no further than his spade sequence. How would you plan the play to avoid needing to rely on a favorable lie of the opponents’ cards?

The answer is to win the spade ace and ruff a spade high, then play the diamond ace and ruff a further diamond. Now ruff a spade high, ruff a diamond high, draw trumps and lead a club from dummy, planning to cover whatever East plays. If East plays low, you put in the nine and force West to lead back a club or give a ruff-sluff. If East puts up the 10, you play the queen, and when West wins his king, he is faced with the same unpalatable alternatives.

Note that this play requires both diamonds and spades to be fully extracted and trumps drawn before the first club play. The essence of an elimination is to remove as many of the defenders’ exit cards as you can.

At the Philadelphia Spring Nationals, David Grainger was the hero in this deal from the Jacoby Open Swiss Teams. Declaring four hearts, he won the low diamond lead and played three rounds of spades, discarding a diamond. West ruffed the third spade and returned a diamond. Put yourself in Grainger’s shoes: You ruff and … what’s your plan?

Grainger inferred East’s likely shape as 4162, since if East had had a singleton club, his partner would have known to give him the ruff. So he needed to find East with a singleton heart honor. Accordingly, South cashed the heart ace, dropping the queen, then led a club to the jack.

Declarer next ruffed a spade with the heart jack, leaving West no good options. In essence, he was squeezed in three suits, one of which was trump. An overruff or an underruff would clearly have been fatal, so West chose to discard a diamond. Declarer now simply led a trump toward dummy’s 10 and was home no matter what West did, since South could draw the last trump sooner or later, then give up a club.

If West had pitched a club instead of a diamond, declarer would have led a club toward dummy. If West had risen with the club ace and led a diamond, declarer could — for example — pitch a club from dummy and ruff in hand. Then the club king followed by another club act as surrogate trumps, limiting the defense to just one more trump trick.

In today’s Common Game deal, my partner played three hearts, making three, when he drew trumps and tested spades but could not develop an extra club trick. The cards appear to lie poorly for declarer, but I saw some pairs had bid to four hearts, and a few had made it. I wondered if that was possible without some defensive help; I asked a couple of players and found the answer.

At one table, West cashed two diamonds, then shifted to a trump. Declarer took East’s jack with the ace, took two top spades and guessed correctly to ruff a spade high, West pitching a diamond. Then he finessed the heart nine, cashed the heart king and ruffed another spade high to squeeze West. When that player came down to his last diamond, declarer eventually threw him in with a diamond, pitching a club from the board. West now had to lead a club and concede the rest.

At another table, the defenders led three rounds of diamonds. Declarer ruffed in dummy and played five rounds of trumps. Everyone came down to five cards, with dummy having one club and four spades. West kept one spade, one diamond and three clubs, while East had to keep four spades and one club. Reading the position perfectly, declarer led the spade nine to the ace, took the club ace and played his low spade to dummy’s five. East won cheaply, but was endplayed.

Had West kept two spades and three clubs, declarer would have taken both top spades and ducked a club to West to endplay him.

Is your money on declarer or the defense in today’s contract of four hearts? It looks as if the duplication in the minor suits makes declarer’s task very hard, but if the defenders are to survive, they will need to be very careful.

Declarer receives a top spade lead against four hearts. He ducks, wins the spade continuation and draws trumps in three rounds, then cashes the diamond ace and king and ruffs a spade before leading a third round of diamonds. West must be careful to have preserved a small diamond (perhaps by pitching his small spade on the third trump) so that East can win the third diamond, or the defense is over.

After East does win the third round of diamonds, he must next lead a club, or declarer can ruff the plain suit in hand, pitching a club; then South should guess clubs. However, if East leads the club ace, he reduces his side’s potential club winners to one.

All of this means that East must shift to a low club, and now declarer (who needs West to have the club queen) has a choice of plays. Putting in the eight makes the contract by force if East started with the nine of clubs. The other play, of putting up the jack, will work out if West covers that card with the queen, but it is fatal if West remembers to duck — easier said than done!

The bottom line is that the contract should be defeated on best defense. But as one of my cynical partners was wont to say, what are the chances of that happening?

After North’s one-no-trump rebid, South used the New-Minor Forcing inquiry of two diamonds. This call promised invitational or better values. North’s rebid of two spades denied four hearts and promised three-card spade support, after which South leapt slightly ambitiously to game.

When West led the diamond jack, declarer weighed up his options thoughtfully. He would surely need a favorable trump break, but even if hearts were 4-3, that would still only get him to nine tricks. Four trumps, two hearts, a heart ruff and the minor-suit aces would come to nine. He would therefore need to make all five of his own trumps, his four side-suit winners and a heart ruff to bring the total to 10.

At trick two, South played a club to the ace, then ruffed a club. After cashing dummy’s trump ace and king, he ruffed another club. Then declarer crossed his fingers before cashing the heart ace and king and ruffing a heart. When dummy’s small trump held, he had nine tricks. For his last piece of good luck, he led the club jack from dummy and scored his trump en passant.

If East ruffed high, declarer would throw a heart from hand and eventually score his remaining trump for his 10th trick. In practice, East discarded a diamond, allowing declarer to score the game-going trick by ruffing the club jack.

Had declarer ruffed dummy’s fourth club before ruffing a heart, East could have pitched a heart and later over-ruffed the third club.