Today’s deal has the air of a constructed puzzle, doesn’t it? After the opponents have warned you of the risk of bad breaks all around (and North has shown a weak hand by doubling five clubs), you end up in the normal contract of five diamonds, having cleverly avoided playing your spade fit and running into a 5-0 break. As an aside, it makes sense to agree that after intervention at the four-level and higher, responder’s initial double is weaker than passing.

The defenders lead the club king; you win (nice play!) and take the diamond ace and king. Much to your surprise, it is West who has the doubleton diamond, and the carding in clubs suggests he has eight or nine cards in that suit.

Next you cash the heart king and ace. West follows up the line to suggest three, and no one is astonished when, on your (necessary) play of the spade king, West shows out, pitching a club.

East can do no better than win the trick and play back the spade jack. You win the spade queen then lead the club jack, throwing a spade from hand. That endplays West to give you a ruff-and-discard, which allows you to dispose of a second spade from hand. If East ducks the lead of the spade king, you lead a low spade and play low from dummy to put him on play. Since a spade continuation would clearly be fatal, he shifts to a club. Again, you again discard a spade and wait for the ruff-sluff to give you your 11th trick.

When this deal came up in a teams match at a regional tournament, I was an innocent bystander watching some friends of mine score up their set. One of the less-experienced players had already commented on his bad luck on this deal. However, when he came to score up and lost 12 IMPs, he was emboldened to ask his teammates what had gone wrong.

First, he explained what had happened to him after a two-no-trump opener had been raised to three. West had led the heart nine, covered all around and won with the ace. Declarer had passed the diamond queen to East, won the spade return in hand and crossed to the diamond ace to run the club jack. When West won and played the heart eight, the defenders were in position to cash five winners.

“Did I do something wrong?” he asked. “What happened at your table?” His teammates explained that the auction had been identical, and so was the opening lead. The big difference was that South did not make the knee-jerk move of covering at trick one in dummy. Instead, he played low from dummy and won the heart ace, then finessed unsuccessfully in diamonds. He could win the spade return and eventually lose the club finesse to West, with both heart intermediates still serving as a bulwark in that suit. South had three top tricks in the majors and had developed six minor-suit winners against any defense.

This move in the heart suit may be unusual, but it is certainly worth adding to the repertoire.

When South opened his 11-count, nothing could stop North from driving to slam, and the final contract was a slightly optimistic six no-trump. Despite the fact that it was pairs, perhaps North-South might have managed to find a way to play six diamonds? Even after a trump lead, declarer has six side-suit winners and six trump tricks.

Although declarer noticed that at least one extra trick needed to come from the heart suit, or possibly the hearts in conjunction with a squeeze, he missed an extra chance that, as the cards lay, would have brought home his slam.

West led a diamond. With 10 tricks on top, South made an immediate start on hearts, winning the diamond with the ace in hand and finessing the queen. When this lost to East’s bare king, there was no further chance for the contract.

Even if the heart king had been onside, declarer would have lost a heart at some point. So suppose that, instead of coming to hand to take the finesse, he had won the lead in dummy and led a low heart away from his ace-queen. As the cards lie, East would be forced to win. (And, if East had originally held a doubleton king, it would have taken strong nerves to duck when the small heart was led.) Irrespective of what East returned, South would now be in business. South would play his spade and diamond winners, and West would be subjected to a squeeze in clubs and hearts, since on the last diamond he could not hold on to four clubs and three hearts.

When North supports spades, South drives to slam via Roman Key-card Blackwood, which identifies the missing trump queen.

As dummy wins the first trick with the club ace, South notes that with 13 tricks available on normal breaks, his goal must be to guard against a combination of bad breaks.

His first step is to ruff dummy’s low club. Then he discovers the bad news in trump. Next comes the heart queen followed by the top diamonds. East might ruff the second, but would be stuck for a good return. If he plays a club, declarer ruffs in dummy and cashes a top heart to discard his last two losing diamonds. After a trump finesse, declarer can claim the rest. If East instead returns a heart (his best try), South can discard one of his low diamonds as dummy wins. The remaining top heart is led, and East must ruff in, but South over-ruffs and draws East’s last trump. There is still a trump in dummy to take care of South’s last low diamond.

To beat the slam, East must not ruff the second diamond; he should discard a heart. He then trumps the next top diamond (discarding would not work, since declarer would ruff the next diamond high). He next leads a club for a ruff-sluff, and can then ruff the next heart winner low. No matter what South does, he will lose one more trick.

If South cashes both top hearts at trick three, discarding a diamond, East waits to ruff a diamond honor, then exits with his low trump!

In today’s deal, John Holland (a regular medalist for England in Open and Senior teams events) was declarer at six no-trump, against which West led a heart. Holland optimistically inserted the jack; if that had held and diamonds had broken 3-2, that would have been 12 tricks, and any pedagogical interest in the deal would have vanished. But when East covered the jack with the queen, Holland won his ace.

When diamonds broke, Holland cashed them all, discarding a heart and spade from hand. (Since five tricks are impossible against the 5-0 break, it is right to lead the diamond ace or queen first, in case East has a bare jack or 10. Then a low diamond to hand reveals whether a finesse of the nine is necessary.)

On the run of the diamonds, East discarded two clubs and a heart. When declarer cashed the club king and led to dummy’s queen, East pitched a small spade. Since it now appeared East had begun with four cards in each major, how should declarer continue?

It looked as if declarer would need a successful finesse of the spade queen to bring his trick total to 12. But Holland spotted a small extra chance when he led a low spade from dummy; after East contributed the five, he put in his eight. This play would guard against East holding both the jack and nine, and Holland’s foresight gave him his slam. An alternative would have been to run the spade 10, and if that were covered, later to finesse the eight.

When West’s opening bid of one diamond is passed around to South, he should reopen the bidding with a double, planning to bid spades over a one-heart response. North has just enough to raise one spade to two, persuading South to bid game.

When West leads the diamond king, South sees he will lose two diamonds and must therefore hold his trump losers to one.

If there had been no bidding, South would plan to enter dummy with a club or a heart in order to lead a trump for a finesse of the queen at some point. Here, however, the finesse will surely lose since West is likely to have the spade king with that opening bid.

After trumping the third diamond, on which East shows up with the queen, South can definitely mark West with the spade king. If East had 5 points in high cards, his partner would not have been able to open the bidding.

So South leads the spade ace, planning to lead a low spade if no honor appears, in the hopes that West was dealt the singleton or doubleton spade king. Luck is with South, since West follows with the spade king on the first round of trumps.

Now the focus shifts to picking up the trump jack-10. The simplest way forward is to unblock the top hearts and lead a low spade to the eight and 10.

South easily regains the lead and crosses to the club ace to pitch his fourth club on the heart queen. Then he draws East’s remaining trumps with the aid of the marked finesse.

“Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof” is terrible advice. Clearly, you should never put off until tomorrow something you can do today. (Ignore everything I said yesterday; I was obviously mistaken.)

When you play four hearts on the lead of the spade nine, you cover with the 10 and win East’s jack in hand to play a diamond. However, West will win his ace and return a spade. The best you can do is win dummy’s ace and try to cash two diamonds. However, East will ruff away your diamond winner, leaving you with a loser in each suit. A trump at trick two works no better against accurate defense.

So, what can declarer do to avoid this fate? If he delays focusing on obtaining his diamond discard and instead tries to cut the defenders’ communications in clubs, he can come home via an indirect route.

Let’s say declarer wins the spade lead in hand and ducks a club. As the cards lie, the best West can win his queen and ace and play a second spade. Declarer takes that in dummy and ruffs a club to hand to lead a diamond to dummy. When West ducks, declarer wins in dummy, ruffs a club and must now lead a heart. West can do no better than win the ace and return the suit. South ruffs the fourth club, exhausting both opponents of clubs, and finally leads a second diamond toward dummy. When West wins, he has only diamonds left to lead, so declarer’s spade loser goes away.

The man who decided that one should “never put off until tomorrow something you can do today” was off target. In the Sermon on the Mount, the aphorism that “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,” is far closer to the truth.

There are occasions when you need to rush at bridge, to take or set up discards, or, more frequently, to draw trumps before something bad happens. But when it comes to guesses in a side suit, it is often the case that the more information you have, the more likely you are to guess well.

Take today’s deal, for example, where you play four spades on repeated heart leads. The first critical issue is to remember to ruff with a trump intermediate, preserving the six. Then cross with another trump intermediate to dummy’s ace and play a second trump. The good news is that you have been able to hold your trump losers to one. When a top club comes back, you duck, then take the club ace, ruff a club and trump a heart high. At this point, you almost have a complete count of the West hand. That player has seven hearts, two spades and at least three clubs, so no more than one diamond.

When you cross to a top diamond in dummy and lead a small diamond from the board, East must split his J-10; unless you were careful enough to preserve the spade six in hand and the seven in dummy, you will be unable to cross to the board to repeat the diamond finesse. But you were careful … weren’t you?