In today’s deal at his second turn, South can either reverse into hearts or simply jump to two no-trump. Either way, he will get to show his real extras, suitable for no-trump, by his third turn. Now North can jump to slam.

In six no-trump, on the opening lead of the spade eight, South needs to generate extra tricks from both diamonds or spades. It looks logical to play on diamonds first; if the finesse succeeds, South can then develop his 12th trick from spades.

So South wins the spade king, then club ace, and takes the diamond finesse. West wins his king and returns another spade through dummy’s tenace. Since the finesse looks a broken reed, South must put up the ace and play for a squeeze.

First he cashes the diamond ace, then runs his clubs, and at trick nine, West is obliged to save two diamonds, and must therefore reduce to two hearts. Dummy’s threat card in diamonds has served its purpose and must now be discarded, so that dummy can preserve the spade jack as a threat against East.

Declarer next crosses to dummy with the heart ace, and cashes the diamond jack, squeezing East. East cannot release a spade, since dummy’s jack would then become established. East therefore discards a heart, and South wins the last two tricks with the heart king and nine.

Did you see the defense to the slam? West must shift to a heart at trick four. This disrupts declarer’s communications for the squeeze.

If a partner you can normally trust does something seemingly strange in defense, it is worthwhile to pause and ask yourself why.

When West led the spade king against four hearts, East followed with the seven and declarer with the nine. Now West knew East’s seven was either a singleton or top of a doubleton – the start of an echo. After the spade ace held the second trick, the full spade position was clear.

At the next trick came the play that put East under the microscope, when West continued with the spade queen, apparently setting up dummy’s suit.

East could count on three tricks for the defense – the two already in the bag, plus the ace of trumps. It was possible, if unlikely, that West held the club ace – if South had held all the missing heart honors plus good diamonds, he would likely have bid in just the same way. But East felt that West would then have cashed the club ace at trick three, since the risk of declarer discarding his clubs on the spades would have been evident.

The only other plausible scenario was that West held jack-third or queen doubleton in trumps. If that were so, East would need to utilize his trump ace right now. If he did not, declarer would cross to dummy and lead a heart, and East’s ace would beat empty air. So East ruffed his partner’s spade queen with the trump ace – and now West had a second trump winner to defeat the game.

In today’s deal North-South were playing two over one as game forcing. But in competition North’s two-club call did not guarantee a second bid. Hence South had to jump to three hearts to set up a force. Now North’s diamond holding persuaded him to try four hearts rather than try for three no-trump. As you can see, reaching no-trump from South might have been the perfect outcome at teams, but at pairs the prospect for a 10th trick at hearts made his decision reasonable.

Put yourself in declarer’s position when West led the spade king against four hearts. See if you can find a better chance than simply finding the diamond ace onside. At the table South ducked the opening lead, and East followed with the nine, playing reverse signals, thus suggesting a three-card suit.

West now decided that declarer was unlikely to have the club queen or he might well not have ducked the first trick, so he accurately shifted to the club jack. South took dummy’s ace, cashed the heart ace, then made the critical play of leading the spade jack, ducking in dummy when West covered.

The best West could do was win and play a second club. Declarer won dummy’s king, threw his third club on the spade ace, and ruffed a club high.

Now he could lead draw trumps ending in dummy, then cash the long club to pitch a diamond. At this point, he had 10 tricks without relying on a favorable diamond position.

Last month I mentioned in passing that while attitude signals worked to give partner your opinion as to whether to continue with the suit led or whether to shift, there might still be occasions when you would encourage partner’s lead, even if you didn’t like the suit all that much.

The best reason for doing that is that you know you fear the consequences of partner’s shift, if you discourage his lead. Let us look at where we want to avoid partner making the “obvious” switch.

Playing a five-card major system, South opens one heart, West overcalls one spade, North bids two spades to show at least a limit raise in hearts and South bids four hearts.

When West leads a top spade, your systemic play would be the two, but do you really want partner to play a diamond, which is his most probable switch if you discourage spades? You are better off encouraging a spade continuation, (before the rats get at it) and allowing partner to collect his diamond winners if any in the fullness of time.

The point here is that even if partner were psychic enough to shift at trick two to a club not a diamond, declarer would then dispose of his second spade loser on the clubs and make his contract in a different way. From partner’s perspective, a diamond might be essential if declarer was about to build a discard on clubs and spades. His hand might be a 2=6=3-2 shape with the top hearts, diamond ace and club jack.

At a Fort Worth sectional, one of my readers, Dick McLamore was South. When he produced a strong jump shift to North’s one-heart opener(!) he heard North jump to five clubs, suggesting good clubs. So he took a pot at the grand slam, once he found a spade control opposite.

When West doubled, North masochistically passed, but McLamore decided that the double had to be based on a club void, the so-called Lightner double. This asks the hand on lead either to attack dummy’s first-bid suit, or to give his partner a ruff. Accordingly he escaped to seven no-trump.

This was logical reasoning, but wrong in every respect. Admittedly, the complete deal would have come as a complete surprise to just about everybody except North, who had had a bidding box accident at her first turn.

Against seven no-trump McLamore captured the spade king lead with the ace. If diamonds were 3-3, he could see there would be 13 tricks for the taking, but West showed out on the third round. Can you see how to advance the play?

Declarer simply ran the clubs, throwing a spade from hand on the fifth. He already knew from the bidding and play thus far that West had the spade queen and the hearts guarded, but even if East had held four hearts as well as West, the last club would have successfully squeezed both players.

In that scenario only a heart lead would have broken up the squeeze, and anyone who found that would have my admiration.

South’s two club opening bid and two no-trump rebid shows a balanced 22 to 24 points, letting North pass gratefully.

South ducks West’s spade lead in dummy, taking East’s king with his ace. He now has two spade tricks, two in hearts, and at best three in clubs. Where will his eighth come from?

South starts by leading the club jack, hoping that West will duck the trick even if he shouldn’t. When the jack holds, he continues with ace and another club and West wins his king.

West has a safe exit in the form of the heart jack. Declarer wins, and cashes off the 13th club, discarding a heart from the board. When West pitches the spade three, South must now get out from his hand, with a fairly good idea that West began with five spades and three clubs.

It looks natural to exit with king and another heart, but if he does, East will cash the 13th heart, and declarer’s hand will be squeezed.

Best may be to play West for the doubleton ace or king of diamonds (much more likely than that East has passed a hand with both top diamonds plus some major stuffing in third seat, nonvulnerable). So declarer exits with a low diamond from hand. When East wins cheaply, he does best to lead a second diamond to West’s bare king. But now, when West plays his heart 10, South ducks, wins the next heart, and plays queen and another spade. West must win and concede trick 13 to dummy’s 10.

The real issue in today’s slam is to avoid the loss of a trick in each minor. If the club finesse succeeds, you can discard one low club on the spade king, and another on the third round of diamonds. How might you succeed with the club finesse wrong?

Well, if you can sneak a diamond past whichever defender has the ace, you can discard your other diamond from hand on dummy’s spade king, and hold your losers to just one club. Equally, though, if you lead a low diamond and the player with the ace hops up with it, you will still succeed. You will now have two discards coming on the diamonds. Coupled with the discard on the spade king you will find you can get rid of all three club losers.

So which defender should be the intended victim of this maneuver – also referred to as a Morton’s fork? The lack of opposing bidding should provide a clue. The opponents never bid with 10 spades between them; assume West has the club king along with a decent five-card spade suit. With the diamond ace as well, West would surely have overcalled one spade.

So draw trump ending in dummy, and lead a low diamond towards the jack. If East plays low, you win with the jack, cross to dummy via the heart seven and throw a diamond on the spade king. If East grabs his ace and switches to a club, win the ace, cash the diamond jack, and pitch your clubs on dummy’s three winners.

How will you play today’s spade game when West leads the heart king?

You win immediately, to avoid a potentially fatal diamond switch. You can count eight top tricks: five in trump plus three aces. One heart ruff in dummy would not help you all that much, because you would still need to set up the clubs. Your best chance is to hope for a 3-3 club break.

Play one round of trump, to the king, and then duck the first round of clubs to preserve communications, ensuring that you can use the club ace as an entry on the next round to ruff out the suit. East does best to win and press on with two more rounds of hearts. What now?

If you ruff the third round of hearts, you will go down. You hope to establish the clubs with one ruff, and will then need to draw trump ending in dummy. But you cannot do this if you have taken a ruff on the board. Instead, discard a diamond from dummy on the third round of hearts. Regain the lead, draw a second round of trump with the king, and you can then ruff out clubs and cross to the ace of trumps to discard two diamonds on the good clubs.

What if East switches to the diamond 10 after winning the first club? You would have to rise with the diamond ace to avoid the defenders reverting to hearts, to defeat you. Again, you can ruff out the clubs and draw trump ending in North, then run the clubs.

In today’s deal East and West have no reason to enter the auction, and when North makes a limit raise to three hearts, South should simply bid game and not tip the opponents off to their best lead.

However, when West leads the spade jack, the best play for four hearts is by no means obvious. Declarer is threatened with the loss of four black suit winners if the club honors are badly placed. To avoid the possible threats it looks right to try to set up the diamonds, but you have a choice of strategies.

Best is to draw trump and play the diamond ace then the queen, running it to West, and throwing away a spade loser. If East has the diamond king you avoid losing the second spade. If West has the diamond king, you will be able to throw two clubs away on the diamonds later on by crossing to dummy in trumps.

But there is one more step in the process – and having identified the main thrust of the deal, it would be a shame to fall at the preliminary hurdle. You must duck the first trick both in dummy and in hand, in an attempt to cut defensive communications. Then you win the next spade, before playing on the red suits. If you cover the first spade in dummy or win it in hand, you leave open a line of communication for the defense to cross back and forth in spades, and beat you if West has the diamond king and one or both club honors.