South might simply have bid three no-trump at his second turn without exploring for a spade fit here. However, given his partner’s atypical honor structure, his choice worked out fine.

Against four spades West led the heart king, to the four, and a discouraging two from East. Now West led out the heart ace, which drew the seven, five, and queen. West then made the apparently natural play of shifting to the diamond jack, letting South win with the king. After drawing three rounds of trump ending in hand, declarer took dummy’s diamond honors, throwing a club from hand. He ruffed the fourth diamond in hand, East pitching a club, then discarded a club from dummy on the heart queen, East following with the eight.

South now decided that if East had begun life with four hearts, he might have pitched one on the fourth diamond, so he probably had no more hearts left. Instead of taking the club finesse, he threw East in with a trump, leaving him to lead into dummy’s ace-queen of clubs at trick 12.

The key to the finding the winning club shift at trick three was that East could have followed with the heart eight at trick two if he had wanted a switch to diamonds. The five should have suggested no preference or the lower ranking suit, clubs. Once you have signaled attitude or count on the first round of a suit, your choice between equivalent small cards may well constitute a suit preference signal.

The auction is straightforward enough on today’s deal, with South showing the equivalent of a no-trump opening with a stopper in the opponent’s suit. A transfer auction leads to the obvious game; but after a diamond lead, South can see only five trump winners and the two red aces in top tricks. He will need to bring in three club tricks to make his game.

A three-three break in clubs makes life easy; but South should try to protect himself against a four-two break in clubs. Since East is rather more likely to have the club ace as part of his opening bid, South should maneuver in clubs in the hope that East will be forced to sacrifice his ace without getting anything valuable in return for it.

South wins the diamond lead and plays a trump to dummy to lead a club toward his hand. East plays low and South wins with the king. Now declarer draws trump ending in dummy in order to lead another low club. This time East has no choice but to play his ace. It is then relatively easy for South to regain the lead with the heart ace, unblock the club queen and come back to hand with the spade king to discard dummy’s losing heart on his club jack.

As you can see, South would go down if he led clubs from hand prematurely. There would be no discard on the clubs, since the suit could not be established. Declarer would lose two diamonds, a heart, and a club.

My first reaction on seeing the South hand in our local duplicate was to wish I was playing rubber. As it was, I could show 23-24 points by opening two clubs then rebidding two no-trump, and North transferred into hearts and offered the choice of games.

I gave some thought to playing hearts on the 5-2 fit – the blockage in hearts suggested that 10 tricks might be easier than nine. Eventually, though, I decided not to mastermind things, and settled for the no-trump game.

The play is not especially complex; but put yourself in South’s shoes on the lead of the spade 10. I’m willing to bet that if this board were slipped into your local club game, at many tables North and East would take turns to cover the first spade. Declarer would win and knock out the heart queen, and collect his 10 tricks without realizing that two serious errors had cancelled one another out.

The point is that South should register that the entries to dummy are few and far between, so he must duck in dummy at trick one to preserve the spade queen-jack as a sure entry to dummy. If declarer covers the first spade and East meanly ducks his king, how can you reach dummy twice (once to set up, and once to cash the hearts)? You can’t.

As an aside; next time you have a bad five-card major but a reasonable hand in response to a two no-trump opener, use Stayman if you don’t think a 5-3 fit is where you want to end up.

My first reaction on seeing the South hand in our local duplicate was to wish I was playing rubber. As it was, I could show 23-24 points by opening two clubs then rebidding two no-trump, and North transferred into hearts and offered the choice of games.

I gave some thought to playing hearts on the 5-2 fit – the blockage in hearts suggested that 10 tricks might be easier than nine. Eventually, though, I decided not to mastermind things, and settled for the no-trump game.

The play is not especially complex; but put yourself in South’s shoes on the lead of the spade 10. I’m willing to bet that if this board were slipped into your local club game, at many tables North and East would take turns to cover the first spade. Declarer would win and knock out the heart queen, and collect his 10 tricks without realizing that two serious errors had cancelled one another out.

The point is that South should register that the entries to dummy are few and far between, so he must duck in dummy at trick one to preserve the spade queen-jack as a sure entry to dummy. If declarer covers the first spade and East meanly ducks his king, how can you reach dummy twice (once to set up, and once to cash the hearts)? You can’t.

As an aside; next time you have a bad five-card major but a reasonable hand in response to a two no-trump opener, use Stayman if you don’t think a 5-3 fit is where you want to end up.

With an extremely unpleasant lead problem against six no-trump, West opted for his singleton club, which turned out to give nothing away. Put yourself in declarer’s shoes and consider how best to develop a 12th trick.

It looks natural to win the club and play two rounds of hearts. The 6-1 break comes as a shock, but declarer still has plenty of chances. He cashes a second club, then runs three rounds of spades and two clubs, and when West discards on the club and spade winners declarer knows his entire shape

Once the count of West’s hand is known, leading up to the diamond king is no better than a toss-up; but can you see how to improve on that?

Declarer must take care to cash the fourth spade (pitching a diamond from hand) then run the clubs, ending in hand, to come down to a three-card ending where he has the ace-10 of hearts and the bare diamond king in hand, and three diamonds in dummy. West must keep two hearts or else the hearts run, so can only keep one diamond.

Now declarer exits from hand with the diamond king, and if West began with either one or both of the diamond honors, the defenders cannot avoid conceding two of the last three tricks, thanks to dummy’s diamond nine.

This position is called a vise; it was first analyzed by Terence Reese nearly 60 years ago, and here it gives you something like a 75 percent chance of success.

When you open two clubs and rebid two no-trump you show a balanced 22-24 HCP. This is not forcing, but North has enough to raise to three no-trump today.

When the defenders lead the diamond king you duck, and see East follow with the diamond three – the defenders play that the king asks for count, so you should assume East has one or three diamonds. How will you plan the play?

One possibility is to take every finesse in sight, but you can do better than that if you can endplay West to lead suits to your advantage. It is tempting to try to do that by throwing him in with diamonds; but you do not know for sure who has the diamond 10.

A better alternative might be to duck the first two diamonds, and win the third, cash the club ace, then the three top hearts, and lead to the club jack. If West follows with the queen on the second round you might consider ducking this. In practice, though, West rates to follow low, and you finesse, cash the king of clubs, and exit with the fourth club to West. That player can cash his long diamond, the defenders’ fourth trick, but in the two-card ending he will have to lead away from his spade king, to give you your ninth trick.

Two points to note: maybe if West did have the doubleton club queen he should unblock the queen under the ace – easier said than done! And as the cards lie, maybe West could find the false-card in clubs on the second round?

Playing two over one, your partner’s sequence shows 18-19 with a doubleton club, and you take an optimistic shot at six clubs. You cover West’s lead of the diamond jack with the queen, but East plays the king, and you win your ace. How do you generate enough tricks from the spades to bring you up to 12 tricks?

You need to take at least three spade tricks, preferably four, without losing the lead. With the odds stacked against, you must identify a distribution that will allow you to get what you need.

Win the first trick, draw trump pitching a heart from dummy, and lead a spade to the queen. When it holds, you have surmounted the first obstacle. Cash the spade ace and ruff a spade. When the king drops, you can cross to the heart ace and cash two more good spades, discarding two of your losers. Had the spade king not fallen, you would have needed to take the heart finesse and ruff out the spades. Then you could have crossed to the heart ace to cash the fifth spade and discard a red-suit loser.

If you take the ruffing finesse in spades instead, by leading to the ace then running the queen, you are limited to a maximum of three spade tricks, even if East holds the king. The defense can cover the queen or jack, so you only get three tricks from the suit, even if everything goes as well as could be hoped. The key to making the slam is to maximize the value of your intermediate spade honors.

Every year there is a junior tournament between England, France, Netherlands and Belgium for schools, girls and juniors. This deal proved to be the key in the England Juniors’ win over the Netherlands.

When West led the diamond seven against four spades doubled, East played three rounds of the suit. South, Ben Norton, ruffed the third one high, West following what seemed to be good technique by discarding.

He chose a high club to show an even number to signal count. But this proved to be a bad idea, because it tipped declarer off to the club position. Declarer realized West surely had some length in spades along with a doubleton diamond, and his discard of a club was not consistent with him holding the queen. Declarer realized that it might be a good idea to extract any trump East might hold, so he first led a sly spade 10 from his hand.

West might well have inferred that declarer had semisolid spades (since he had earlier ruffed in with the king) but could see little danger in ducking. South showed him the error of his ways by switching tack. He played ace and another club, putting up the king. When the queen fell, he could discard his heart on the third club, ruff a heart back to hand, and draw trump for plus 790.

In the other room East-West had bid on to five hearts doubled. This went two down for minus 300, so the swing was 10 IMPs to England instead of 9 IMPs the other way.

Do the experts play better now than they did 80 years ago? I would certainly concede that bidding techniques have improved dramatically. Even so, given that experts still reach plenty of bad contracts, the majority of expert hands consist of avoiding mistakes rather than being brilliant.

Also, we can now discover that some of the most admired deals from the past were flawed, though that is not true of today’s deal, which was played by Charles Goren. As you can see, the auction featured the use of four-card majors – though even using five-card majors, some might open the South hand one heart.

Against three no-trump, the club king was led and ducked. Next came the club queen, and Goren ducked again. Now since he had no entries, West decided to shift to the diamond 10, won by dummy’s ace. Goren next led a heart to the ace, and tried a spade to the queen and king. Back came the diamond queen, and Goren ducked again, rectifying the count, by losing four tricks early, and improving his ability to count out the hand. After winning the next diamond with the king, Goren cashed the heart king, then the club ace and the spade ace-jack.

At this point West could be counted out to have begun with four spades, two diamonds, and five clubs, so could not hold more than the two hearts he had already followed to. So in the two-card ending Goren could lead to the heart 10 and claim the rest.