The contract of six spades is reached along straightforward lines when South shows a balanced 22-24, and North transfers into spades to show five, then offers a choice of slams with his call of five no-trump. South selects spades, hoping he can arrange a club ruff in his hand.

Six spades ought to be straightforward enough, but the duplication of values in the club suit means that not only is declarer reliant on the hearts behaving in moderately friendly fashion, he also has entry problems in ensuring he can play hearts to best effect.

The opening lead is the club four to declarer’s ace. Now comes the spade king, and declarer can afford to overtake his king with the ace when West follows suit. At this point declarer plays a heart to the jack and queen. (If West ducks this he may lead declarer astray, I suppose, but few would find that play – and declarer can still survive.)

South wins the next club, to lead the spade 10 from hand. When West follows to the trick, he overtakes it in dummy to take a second heart finesse. The 4-1 trump break does not inconvenience declarer, thanks to the multiple unblocks. When the second heart finesse works, South can finesse the spade eight and run the spades, to draw the rest of the trump, discarding diamonds from hand. Finally, a third heart finesse brings home the bacon.

Declarer finishes up taking five spades, three hearts, and two tricks in each of the minors.

Whatever action East takes here, South should compete as far as three hearts. The defense leads three rounds of diamonds, trying to kill declarer’s discard. The third diamond will get ruffed and over-ruffed, and now South needs to try to hold the black suit losers to two. Since East is likely to have the club ace, it seems right to lead a low club from dummy to the queen. Then he draws trumps, leading high hearts from hand, before advancing his second club. Declarer covers West’s card with his nine, and East takes his 10 and gets out with a top spade. Win or duck? Pause for reflection before committing yourself.

You have two chances for the contract, but simplest is to try to ruff out the club ace, which works if East has only three clubs.

What if he does not? Then East would have begun with six diamonds, and four clubs. Given that he is also known to hold two hearts, East can’t have more than one spade in that scenario, can he? Therefore you should let the spade king hold the trick. What can East do? If he gives you a ruff-sluff, it lets you pitch one of your spade losers. Meanwhile, if he plays a club, be it high or low, it will let you use the club king as a discard for your spade loser.

Had you won the spade ace, then whether you led a high or low club from dummy, or a spade, you would not be able to avoid two further spade losers.

In today’s deal, West has a full range opening bid with a chunky five-card major. When East raises one heart to two, South must come in now. This is a safe spot to overcall. With something close to an opening bid, plus a six-card suit, you have a little in hand for acting, especially when the opponents have found a fit.

North must now support spades. A few wild optimists might raise to game; but the cue-bid raise is a slightly more prudent action. It asks South if he has any extras; if not, as here, South can sign off in three spades. At this point North should trust his partner and pass. Will he be justified in his caution? Watch this space.

Against three spades, West will lead the heart king and follow up with the ace. But what should he do next? If he plays a spade, diamond or heart, declarer wraps up nine tricks. And a club… holds declarer to eight tricks. What is more, if West trusts East, he should know to play a club. Why? Because of the heart spots East follows with on the first two tricks, the second of which should be significant.

Specifically, East’s heart at trick two should be suit preference. If West thinks about his partner’s small hearts, he will read the first one as attitude, but at trick two the size of the ‘irrelevant’ small heart should be suit preference. When West sees his partner follow with the smallest heart, he should shift to clubs, and defeat the contract.

In today’s deal you have nine top tricks in four hearts after a top spade lead. Where should you go to you find another – and would your strategy vary if you were playing pairs as opposed to teams?

It seems logical to try to develop the diamonds. So after taking your spade ace, you might be tempted to cross to a heart in dummy and finesse in diamonds. If that succeeds, you might ruff out the diamonds and come home with 12 tricks. At pairs that would be a perfectly reasonable line if you suspected the field would be playing four hearts.

At teams you can do better, by cashing the ace of trumps at trick two. Were hearts 4-0, you might revert to taking the diamond finesse. But when both hands follow to the first trump, cash the diamond ace and then continue with the queen. The defense will take their spade winners and shift to clubs. You can win in dummy, ruff a diamond high, then cross to dummy with a trump to ruff another diamond high, and play a trump to dummy. At this point all the opponents’ trumps have been drawn and you are in dummy to cash the long diamond for a club discard.

This plan is better than taking the diamond finesse, since it succeeds unless diamonds break 5-1 or worse – and that will happen less than one time in six. By contrast, using a trump entry to take the diamond finesse will fail almost a third of the time, when diamonds are 4-2 with the finesse failing.

It is logical for South to open two no-trump, showing 20-21, and for North to bid what he thinks his partner can make, by jumping to six no-trump. The 5-4 diamond fit never gets mentioned, but in fact no-trump plays just fine.

After the lead of the club 10 to the queen, declarer can almost count 12 winners, but he sees there may be one small catch. He can pick up a 4-0 diamond division on either side, provided he knows which defender has four diamonds. Is there a way to thwart a potentially malign fate here?

South can improve his chances by delaying the decision in diamonds as long as possible, specifically by ducking a spade at trick two. West plays low and declarer puts in dummy’s 10, letting East take the trick with his queen. After winning the club return, declarer cashes his black suit winners, and when East discards on the third spade he discovers that West started with five spades and three or four clubs.

This means that there is now a far smaller chance that West has four diamonds, than that East has the length in that suit. In all such situations, play the defender with the more vacant spaces (in his hand not his cranium) for length in a side suit.

Accordingly, declarer leads a diamond to the king. Then he can play the diamond 10, covered by the jack and queen. He can return to dummy with a high heart and take the second diamond finesse against East’s nine for his contract.

In the auction in today’s deal as South you break North’s transfer to hearts, to show four trumps and a non-minimum. Then over the four diamond cuebid you show your spade control, and jump to slam when his partner denies a club control. Rustic perhaps, but the final contract is a good one.

Against six hearts the defenders lead a trump. When dummy comes down it would be easy to relax, and to try to rely on taking the double finesse in spades – which give you at least a 75 percent chance of coming home with 12 tricks. But you can do better. While there may be more than one line that succeeds here, the neatest play involves an elimination, which brings you in at close to a 100 percent chance of success.

You carefully rise with the ace, unblock the diamond honors, come to the heart king (preserving dummy’s five) then cash the diamond queen to pitch a club, and play ace and another club, ruffing high in dummy.

Now you lead the heart five to the six, ruff the last club in dummy, and have reduced to an ending where both the North and South hands have three spades and a trump. When you lead a spade to the 10 and queen, West must surrender. He can either lead a spade into the tenace or give you a ruff-sluff if he has a minor suit to exit with. Whatever he does, you have the rest.

Jean Besse was Switzerland’s greatest bridge player, who wrote intelligently about the theory of the game. In one article he referred to the irrelevant small cards as neutrinos and explained how you had to be careful not to give away unnecessary information to declarer to allow him to count out your hand by voiding yourself prematurely in a suit.

This deal from the 1993 Epson Simultaneous Pairs (held at the top of the Post Office Tower in London) demonstrates the principle to good effect.

When North-South reached six no-trump, West elected to make a passive heart lead. Declarer cashed the club ace and king, then ran the hearts as East discarded diamonds. West threw three diamonds, and now declarer played a spade to the queen and king. West carefully returned a low club and declarer misguessed by inserting the queen, East throwing a spade, and South a diamond.

So far so bad, but at this point the diamond ace forced a spade out of West. Declarer now knew that both defenders only had one spade left, since East was guarding diamonds and West clubs. He could thus play a spade to his ace in complete confidence, and drop West’s jack.

Did you note West’s error? Since she was going to have to pitch a spade sooner or later, it would have been right to discard it on the sixth heart. Then declarer does not get the complete count on diamonds and eventually has to guess spades.

This deal came to me from a reader, Scott Nason of Dallas, who remarked on his partner’s presumptuousness in driving to a slam missing two keycards – and then some. But he also accepted full responsibility for failing to bring home the optimistic contract. Could you have done better?

When Scott’s LHO led the heart two Scott rose with the ace, feeling confident that this particular West would not have led small from the doubleton king. The king fell from East, so the first hurdle had been crossed. But don’t relax; you need to plan the rest of the play.

Without any bidding from the opponents, the best line would probably be to play a spade toward hand, and put in the jack if RHO plays small. (If East is good enough to duck dummy’s singleton while holding the ace, you should pay off to him.) If the jack fetches the ace, the plan is to pitch a club on the king, and take the diamond finesse for the 12th trick.

But, since West had actually made a one-spade overcall, I think the best line is to play a heart to hand and put the diamond queen on the table. It is covered by the king, so you win the ace, and play a diamond to the jack. Now lead a heart to the board, and cash the diamond ace, pitching the spade jack. Then, ruff the last diamond and exit with the spade king to endplay your LHO.

If Scott had done all of that, he would have had a deal to remember.

South’s opening bid of one no-trump makes it easy for North to bid game. If North’s five-card suit were a major, he might transfer, but since it is a minor, he should raise to game in no-trump.

South is relieved to see a heart opening lead, since the defense has not gone after his weak point, spades. Nonetheless, declarer has to plan what might happen if the defenders get on lead early in the deal. South will win just four club tricks if the club finesse loses; if that is the case, he will need to make something out of the diamonds to bring home his contract.

If South tackles clubs at once, East may work out to win and shift to spades. Then when South goes after diamonds, East will win and cash out the spades.

One possible way to avoid this revolting development is for declarer to win the first trick in dummy and go after diamonds immediately. If East has the diamond ace, he may well play low on the first round of the suit – even if he shouldn’t.

What is more, if East does fly up with the diamond ace, he may continue the attack on hearts, since the play so far is entirely consistent with declarer having king-third of hearts.

As it happens, when East ducks the first diamond, South can safely switch to clubs. The rest is easy. The general principle is that it pays to steal the ninth trick early. The opponents are less likely to let you get away with it later on, when they have had a chance to work out what is going on.