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.

The decline in the number of entries in women’s events has me wondering how the women of today would match up against the American teams from 50 years ago. After all, it was only in the ‘70s that the Venice Cup — the most prestigious of women’s events — came into being.

As a small piece of evidence that the women back then could really play, I adduce into evidence this deal from a Spingold knockout match from that period.

Mary-Jane Farrell was playing with Marylin Johnson, and she declared six hearts on the lead of a low trump. She decided to play the diamond ace and take a diamond ruff, then the spade ace and a spade ruff followed by top trumps. If hearts had broken, she would have had 12 tricks, but she needed some more luck when trumps failed to behave.

She played her remaining top heart and exited with a heart, throwing two spades and a club from table. Nancy Gruver as West now made a nice play when she produced the club king to prevent declarer from taking three easy club tricks. Farrell won the club ace and simultaneously unblocked the club queen from hand to leave a four-card ending where dummy had two spades and two clubs, while she retained a trump, a club and two diamonds.

When she ruffed a spade to hand, she would have been home if the king had fallen, but even as it was, since East had sole control of diamonds and clubs, the spade ruff squeezed her into conceding the 12th trick.

In today’s deal, East-West did well not to sacrifice in five diamonds, which should certainly go at least two down, and might fare even worse from the East seat on an unlikely heart lead. East’s double of two spades showed cards but no obvious call, and West decided to take his chances on defense — a wise choice, with four spades a delicate contract.

When West quite naturally tried to cash two rounds of diamonds, South seized his opportunity by ruffing, then making the critical play of finessing hearts and eliminating that suit. Then he exited in trumps, and East was endplayed with his bare ace. He was forced to concede a ruff-sluff — in which declarer would pitch a club from hand and ruff in dummy — or lead a club himself, his actual choice.

That would have been good enough to set the game if the three and 10 of clubs were switched, but as it was, when West won his club king he had, East had no choice but to return a club, and declarer could claim the rest.

If a trump is led or a trump shift comes after the lead of the diamond king gets a count signal from East, the endplay no longer works. Declarer’s best play is to eliminate the red suits, then lead the club jack from dummy. This will work if either defender holds both the club king and queen or if West has a doubleton club king or queen. And of course, we have all seen sleepy defenders fail to cover an honor with an honor when they should …