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.

Today’s deal cropped up in a team game, where one declarer came back in triumph with what he was sure was a good result and was somewhat deflated at the comparison of scores.

Our first declarer had played four hearts on the lead of the diamond nine. He took East’s jack in his hand and led a heart to the jack and ace. East could have defeated the game by returning a diamond, but instead he exited passively with a spade. Declarer could regain the lead to draw trumps, eventually losing one trick in spades and diamonds, to come back with 10 tricks.

When it came to the score comparison, his teammates read out minus 420. Our hero was somewhat crestfallen and made his next mistake when he asked his teammates what had gone wrong.

“What do you mean?” came the answer in a surprised tone of voice. “I also led the diamond nine, which went to the jack and ace. Our declarer suspected the lead to be a singleton, so he made the essential play of eliminating clubs before touching trumps.

“Then declarer played on hearts, and my partner won and accurately gave me a ruff. But what could I do now? I was out of red cards, so I had to lead the spade ace and another spade. Declarer could now discard dummy’s losing diamond on the spade king. If I had played a club, giving a ruff-and-discard, the losing diamond would again have disappeared. I assume you played it the same way?”

“Almost exactly,” came the response.

Here you reach four spades after a straightforward Jacoby two no-trump sequence. Your jump to four spades shows a minimum hand with no shortage, after which North has no reason to look any further. When West leads a trump, you should plan the whole play at trick one.

There appear to be three inevitable losers in the minors; you cannot circumvent them, but must instead give yourself the best chance to avoid a heart loser. Rather than drawing all the trumps at once, duck a club at trick two, leaving all your communications intact.

You win the diamond return, draw the remaining trumps, play the club ace and ruff the last club, then cut loose with a diamond. The best the defenders can do is to cash their diamonds ending in East. If West wins the third diamond, he must concede at once.

But let’s say East arranges to win the third diamond; then he must play a heart, and you can play low and run it around to dummy’s nine. If West produces the 10, you take the ace and lead a heart to your jack. This line succeeds unless West has both the heart queen and 10, a 75 percent line. By contrast, if you play on hearts yourself, you are reduced to simply taking the heart finesse. In doing so, you would turn a 75 percent line into a 50 percent chance.

As an expert once remarked: There is no suit that handles better if you lead it yourself, than if the opponents lead it for you.

In the semifinals of the NEC trophy last February, both tables reached three no-trump after each declarer had shown some extras in the contexts of their opening bid styles. Both Wests led a top spade against three no-trump.

In one room, declarer Inon Liran won dummy’s spade ace and played a heart to the king and ace. Barry Myers, West, won to shift to the diamond 10. Declarer won in hand and ducked a heart, won the next diamond and played the heart queen to find the bad news. Then he ran the club jack to Myers, who led a diamond to his partner. She could cash her red-suit winners for down three.

In the other room, Karen McCallum did much better; she ducked the opening lead, won the diamond shift in hand and led a club. West won his queen and pressed on with diamonds. (Wouldn’t we all?) McCallum ducked in dummy, letting East overtake to play the heart jack, ducked around to the queen.

Now McCallum overtook the club jack and ran four club winners, then threw West in with a heart to lead spades for the ninth trick. A well-deserved game swing for McCallum’s team.

After declarer ducks the first spade, either a spade continuation or a diamond shift still beats the game. But if declarer ducks the diamond switch, West must then go back to spades to set three no-trump. And if (as at the table) declarer wins the diamond ace and leads clubs, West must win and continue clubs at trick four to disrupt declarer’s entries!

In the finals of the NEC trophy between Hackett and England/USA, we saw Hackett come back from a big deficit early on in the match to lead at the half. The first deal of the next set did nothing to change the spectators’ minds that momentum had shifted.

At one table, England/USA reached three no-trump after South had cue-bid then bid spades in response to his partner’s overcall in diamonds, since immediate spade bids would not have been forcing. Alas, this sequence was construed by North as bidding stoppers for no-trump rather than showing a suit. The club lead set the no-trump game immediately, as all declarer could do was run spades, then try for a miracle in diamonds.

Four spades, by contrast, looks easy enough; after the defenders led clubs, declarer won and set about arranging his heart ruff for the 10th trick. After West won her ace, she cashed a club and returned a trump. Declarer took the heart ruff, drew trumps, led a diamond to dummy and claimed when the second diamond produced the king from East.

But what if West had shifted to a diamond after winning the heart ace? Declarer must go up with the ace or suffer a ruff, and now he cannot both take a ruff and lead diamonds from dummy at the critical moment.

The only way to make the contract legitimately is immediately to draw trumps ending in dummy, then lead diamonds from dummy — by no means obvious, since the chosen line was proof against most diamond breaks.

In the qualifying rounds of the NEC Trophy, Sartaj Hans of Australia had the opportunity for a nice play. He declared six clubs on the auction shown; this was an elegant sequence to get back to clubs after initially agreeing hearts.

After a top diamond lead, Hans won and drew trumps at once, seeing East discard a diamond and a heart, then took the heart finesse. When it lost and a heart came back, the bad break there came to light. Now the key issue was whether to play East or West for four spades. In a sense, the location of the spade queen was irrelevant to declarer’s play.

If West was the player with four spades, South could simply cash the remaining heart winners and ruff a heart to reach a five-card ending. If West held only three spades, they would ruff out. If he came down to the bare diamond king, declarer would cross to the spade king and ruff out that suit instead.

However, Hans decided that East’s failure to raise diamonds at his first turn suggested that he had only three diamonds. So West had six diamonds, three clubs and one heart, and thus only three spades.

Accordingly, it was East who was going to be the victim of a squeeze. Declarer won the second heart, played three rounds of spades ruffing in dummy, and trumped a second diamond in hand. At this point, he led the last club from hand and caught East in a simple major-suit squeeze. Contract made.

Today’s deal from the 2017 NEC Trophy in Japan saw several declarers struggling in a delicate four spade game here.

Where Cenk Tunkok was declarer, West led a diamond against four spades, won his spade ace and shifted to hearts. Declarer won in hand and played a spade, which was ducked, and another spade. East won his king, and after some reflection continued with a heart.

Declarer knew from East’s opening bid that the club finesse was losing, but if he had taken it, he would have been home. Instead, he imagined East had begun with 4–4-4-1 shape, so he led a club to the ace and another club. A third heart from East now left him stranded, since he had no communication left in clubs.

Nicely defended, but in the other room, where East had not bid, Sally Brock led a heart, and declarer won in hand and knocked out the spade ace, won the heart return, and played a second trump. When the nine held, South could see that a third trump would be fatal if the club king was wrong. Instead, he crossed to hand with a diamond and passed the club nine, and Barry Myers ducked smoothly.

Declarer had no reason not to repeat the finesse, but now Myers won, cashed the spade king and played the third heart, again leaving declarer without the communications to draw trumps.

Curiously, ducking the club was an unnecessary risk here, since winning and playing back either a club or a heart would have been good enough to beat the game, regardless of what declarer did.

All the deals this week come from the NEC invitation teams in Yokohama, Japan, last year, a world-class tournament with a three-day qualifying event followed by a knockout for the surviving eight teams.

Where I was watching a match on Vugraph I saw both Easts pass in third seat. Both Wests therefore led an interior heart against three no-trump. In one room, Paw Cheng won in hand to lead a club to the jack and ace. Declarer ducked the next heart, won the diamond switch, then played on spades for his ninth trick.

In the other room, Teruko Nishimura played a club to the jack at trick two, ducked by East. Now declarer came to hand with a diamond to lead a second club up. East won and played back a heart, and the play essentially transposed into the same position as the one Cheng had reached, with the ninth trick coming from spades.

That looks easy, but other tables found the hand harder, especially when East-West joined in the auction. For example, Roy Welland opened one spade in third seat, and now against three no-trump Sabine Auken led a spade to the 10 and queen. Declarer led a club to the jack, and when it held, he fell from grace.

He should have crossed to hand with a diamond to lead a second club toward the queen (as Australian Tony Nunn did in the other room after the same spade lead). Instead, he led a low heart from dummy to his queen and West’s king. Now a spade back left declarer needing clubs or hearts to lie favorably, and today was not his day.

The deals this week come from the NEC tournament in Japan last February.

Today’s deal was the penultimate deal of a knockout match, with the Hackett team (the eventual winners of the tournament) trailing by a small margin. Both tables reached three no-trump, and in both rooms a spade was led.

In the first room, West led the spade six (high from three small in a bid suit). South covered with the jack, ducked Alex Hydes’ (East) king, won the spade return and played a diamond to the jack, queen and king. In again with the third spade, declarer led and passed the diamond nine to the 10, and Hydes quickly cashed two spades for down one.

In the other room, Paul Hackett was declarer. He also played dummy’s jack at trick one, but took the king with the ace to lead a diamond, losing the queen to the king, as in the other room.

When a second spade came back, Hackett ducked. Now the best the defenders could have done was clear the spades, but they actually shifted to hearts to make his life easy. What would have happened if the defenders had played a third spade?

Hackett would have won and led the diamond nine from hand. When West showed out on the second diamond, declarer would have risen with dummy’s ace and turned his attention to clubs instead. The fall of the jack-10 would have meant he would have taken four clubs, a diamond and two tricks in each major.