Very few people have heard of the Vondracek phenomenon, and fewer still would believe that it is a serious bridge idea, rather than some kind of a joke. However, the concept is a serious one.

More than 60 years ago the idea was proposed in Bridge World by Felix Vondracek that when faced with a choice of trump suits, it might work better to play in the weaker not the stronger fit. The logic is that if you have sure losers whichever suit you play in, you may retain control by leaving the opponents with the master trumps. By contrast, playing the stronger suit may compel you to draw more rounds of trump.

On the auction shown, South finished up in four hearts when North thought it was just possible that South had 5-6 in the majors, and that otherwise it would be a pure guess as to which major might play better.

As you can see, four spades gets forced on repeated club leads, when the 4-1 heart break makes it impossible to set up the side suit. Not that four hearts was easy to make either, but South ruffed the opening club lead and guessed well to play three rounds of spades before playing trump.

West ruffed the third spade and played a second club, which South ruffed, in order to cash the heart ace and lead winning spades. West ruffed in, drew one more round of trump, then played a third club. However declarer could ruff, pitch a diamond from dummy on the master spade, and cross-ruff the rest.

When you sensibly upgrade your hand out of a weak two because of the vulnerability, you are driven inexorably to four spades. You have nine top tricks in aces and kings, which means that three no-trump would have been a more comfortable spot, by a considerable margin.

But this is no time for ruing what might have been. Where will your 10th trick come from? You might be able to obtain an extra winner from the hearts, or perhaps by endplaying the defenders and forcing a club lead. Is there another chance? There is, and the hidden extra chance comes from the diamond spots. You have just enough straw to turn into a single brick.

At trick one, declarer should cover the diamond jack with dummy’s king, losing to East’s ace. When East returns a trump, declarer should cash the spade ace, queen and king, then run dummy’s diamond nine, taking a ruffing finesse against the queen. If East ducks, declarer discards a heart from hand. If East covers, declarer ruffs and dummy’s diamond seven-six then force out a trick against West’s 10. The only time this line will fail is if West has found a diabolical opening lead away from the ace-jack-10 of diamonds – and if he has, he deserves to defeat you.

Note also that the defenders do best to shift to hearts at trick two, but so long as you pitch a heart when taking the first ruffing finesse, you will survive that too.

Strong three-suited hands are always hard to bid. South opens two clubs, since he doesn’t want to risk being passed out by a weak hand long in either hearts or clubs.

North temporizes with a two diamond response, then jumps to four clubs as a splinter in support of spades. North’s strong bidding should encourage South to bid a slam. Indeed, South should really consider a grand slam, since North needs very little more than he actually holds for seven spades to be an easy contract. However, his partner’s diamond cuebid isn’t the most helpful news, and after two further signoffs South contents himself with the small slam.

That is certainly a good decision today, since with this particular combination of cards in the defenders’ hands, 12 tricks is more than sufficiently hard a target. In playing six spades, South should count winners rather than losers. This is the correct procedure whenever you expect to do some ruffing in both hands.

Best is to win the diamond ace at trick one pitching a club, then take the club ace and ruff a club, followed by the heart ace and a club ruff low.

The danger of the second club ruff failing to an over-ruff cannot be avoided, but the chance of a 6-2 club break is not that significant. When the club ruff stands up, lead a heart to the king, ruff a heart high, then a diamond high, and take a heart ruff with the spade seven. East can over-ruff, but declarer’s remaining trumps are high.

Today’s deal saw South declare six spades after North had upgraded his hand to a balanced 18-19 count by virtue of his great controls. When North showed his spade support, South cuebid his heart ace, North subsequently continuing his optimistic approach by using keycard and driving to slam.

West led the club 10, and it looked logical for South to try to set up hearts, planning to come to nine tricks in the majors and three tricks in the minors. The first order of business was to win the opening lead with the ace, and lead a trump to the king. Now he unblocked the heart ace, cashed the spade queen, then drew the last trump by crossing to the spade ace.

Then came the heart king-queen, throwing two clubs from hand. Had hearts broken, South would have ruffed out the hearts and given up just one diamond trick. When the hearts failed to break, with West long in hearts, and thus potentially short in diamonds, declarer led a low diamond from the table without cashing the ace. East ducked his diamond king smoothly, and South’s diamond queen won the trick.

Now South crossed back to dummy with the diamond ace and led a second diamond back towards his jack for his 12th trick.

Had East been long in hearts, it would probably have been right to ruff a heart to hand and pass the diamond queen. That line guards against East being short in diamonds with either the singleton or doubleton 10 or nine.

Today’s deal comes from Larry Cohen’s latest book: “Larry Cohen Teaches Declarer Play at No-trump”.

In three no-trump, on the lead of the diamond five, we don’t know whether diamonds are four-four. Let’s say RHO plays the diamond queen and we duck. There is no rush to take the diamond ace even if the hold-up doesn’t seem to serve a very useful purpose.

When East returns the diamond 10, we win with the ace, West contributing the diamond four (an honest card that helps you more than it helps East). Now what? Today, diamonds don’t appear to be four-four; if they were, West would have led the diamond four at trick one. It looks as if West started with five and East with three. If that is so, playing clubs will lead to instant defeat. The defense will win the club ace and run the diamond tricks.

Instead, we should take our only chance, which consists of playing on hearts. Of course, with only seven hearts between the two hands, the odds favor finessing as opposed to playing for the drop in hearts.

If the queen is onside, you will come to nine tricks. Admittedly, if the finesse loses, you will fail by two tricks, but taking the only chance is better than giving up.

By contrast on the initial lead of the diamond two, promising a four-card suit, you would win, and drive out the club ace. You would expect the defenders to be able to score three diamonds and an ace, but no more.

The South hand is in no way good enough for a two no-trump opener, which should be 20-21. Only rarely will you consider upgrading a 19-count. Your plan of campaign should be to open one heart, planning to raise a response of one no-trump to two, to suggest precisely these values. At the table, when partner raises to two hearts (a constructive call if you play the forcing no-trump) you can offer a choice of games with a call of three no-trump. Now, assuming North decides his small doubleton club is a danger signal, you should finish up in four hearts rather than three no-trump.

After a spade lead, there is a slight risk of a diamond or spade ruff, but South might well decide that this looks like a sensible moment for a safety play in hearts if the diamond finesse works. So it feels right to win the spade lead and play a diamond to the jack.

If the finesse loses, you will play a heart to the ace and a heart to the jack. However, when the diamond finesse wins, you can afford one heart loser but not two. So lead out the heart king, then play a low heart to the nine.

If you lose this trick, you surely have the rest bar the two club losers. If West has four hearts, you have held your losers to one. And what if East has four hearts? Then when West discards on the second round of hearts, go up with the ace and complete the drawing of trump.

Against your six club contract West leads the diamond 10 to East’s ace, and East returns a diamond to your king. You can try the heart finesse for the 12th trick. Is there anything better?

There is indeed; you must make the most use of your discard coming on the diamonds. Best at trick three is to cash two of your high trumps from hand. Then, cross to the trump honor in dummy, cash the heart king and ace, and discard your losing heart on dummy’s diamond queen. Finally, ruff a heart in hand and lead a spade to the board to discard your spade loser on the established hearts.

This line of play is a real improvement on the straightforward heart finesse. It negotiates all the 3-2 heart splits, and also succeeds when the queen is singleton.

This is considerably better than the straightforward heart finesse, which is only a 50 percent chance, plus the slight chance of a singleton queen offside.

On average, a suit will break 3-2 about two thirds of the time, and when there is a singleton queen that ups the odds for this line even further.

Incidentally, you will note that had the defenders shifted to a spade at trick two, that removes dummy’s late entry. Declarer must lead out two high trumps from hand then cash the two top hearts, take his discard, ruff a heart high, and go back to the club king to obtain his discards.

Sometimes declarer needs to find a way to entice a defender to continue with the suit that has been initially led, rather than make a potentially damaging shift. Declarer found a neat solution to just that problem in today’s deal.

After North raised his partner’s two no-trump opening to three, West was aware that since North-South had not tried to locate a major suit fit, it might well be right to attack in a major rather than a minor. But West was unimpressed with the quality of his major suits, and had a natural sequence to attack from, so he chose the club jack for his opening salvo.

South immediately saw he would need four tricks from clubs to make his game. That would be easy to do, if the suit broke 3-2, but declarer thought that this was relatively unlikely to be so. After all, why would West be leading from a three-card suit, as he must have at least one four-carder available?

South realized that if he cleared the clubs, East would surely show where his values lay. Now West would be likely to find the diamond switch, after which South rated to lose at least four tricks in that suit.

So at trick one South dropped the seven under the jack. West, seeing his partner’s eight, and noting that neither the four nor the three had put in an appearance, took the eight as encouraging, and played a second club. Declarer wrapped up his contract, unsuccessfully trying to conceal a smirk as he did so.