In today’s deal, facing a one diamond opener, North sensibly decided to drive his hand to game, thus responded two clubs. If his side wanted to play hearts it rated to play better from his partner’s side, and the fit could still come to light later. If you respond one heart you can never really describe your assets properly after that.

Now switch to declarer’s seat in three no-trump on a spade lead. After the spade queen holds at trick one, you have seven fast tricks. Where will you find two more? The right thing to do is to try the heart finesse first. When the heart queen holds, you might change tack from your original plan of playing clubs from the top.

The heart finesse is a discovery play, to determine the goal from the club suit, (in other words whether to play for 3-3 clubs or to protect against 4-2 clubs). By taking the heart finesse, you learn how to play clubs. When the finesse wins, you can afford to duck a round of clubs as your safest route to four tricks in the suit, given that dummy is entryless outside the clubs. If the heart finesse had failed, you would have relied on a 3-3 club split.

Incidentally if the hearts in dummy had been 10-9-6-3 you might have led a heart to the queen, then cashed the ace before tackling clubs, since if either the king or jack fell under the ace, you would have had a guaranteed route to nine tricks by setting up a third heart winner for your side.

Facing a strong no-trump, North has just enough to raise to three no-trump; against which West leads the diamond queen.

South should win in dummy, hoping to pin a bare nine or 10 of diamonds in East. He cannot afford to duck, since clubs, not diamonds, are the danger suit. Where does he go for tricks? His best chance is to lead the heart jack, and the moment of truth has arrived for East. If he covers the first heart, declarer will make three heart tricks and his contract.

East must play low, allowing his partner to win with the king, thereby keeping the queen-eight over the 10. That way declarer is limited to two heart tricks, since when declarer leads the 10, East can cover, hoping his partner has the nine. It must be right to cover the second time – if declarer has the nine, East’s queen is dead meat. This way declarer is limited to two heart tricks, and when diamonds do not yield declarer’s extra trick, he has only eight winners.

The general rule is that in second seat one should cover the second, not the first, of touching honors. There are exceptions when you have a doubleton honor, but the rule applies often enough that one should stick with it, and not question it too deeply. This is true whether we are looking at a combination of J-10 or Q-J for declarer or dummy.

Of course as third hand you play third hand high – but that is another story.

A match between Hungary and Belgium, during the European Junior Championships of 2004, threw up the possibility of an interesting line of defense. Even with the sight of all four hands the killing maneuver is not easy to find. So I think Tamas Szalka was due congratulations for finding the play at the table.

Against two spades, West made his natural lead of the heart king. The Belgian South took dummy’s ace, correctly focusing on drawing trump and not allowing the defenders to shift to diamonds, which would have facilitated their chances of finding the ruff.

At trick two, declarer took the spade finesse. In with the trump king, Szalka found the only play to defeat the contract – the diamond six. South played dummy’s 10, and East, Gabor Winkler, won with his king.

The spotlight now shifted to East, and he made no mistake, resisting the urge to cash his heart winner. Instead, he immediately returned a diamond. Declarer tried the nine, but West was able to cover with the jack, neatly locking declarer on the table. Now South was unable to exit from dummy without letting East in to give his partner the diamond ruff, to set the hand.

Had East cashed his side’s heart winner before returning a diamond, declarer could have ruffed a heart back to hand and drawn trump. And had West shifted to the diamond jack at trick three, declarer’s diamond nine would have become a re-entry to his hand.

This may seem like a ‘Heads you win, tails you win’ hand, but it is often easy to overlook suretrick lines. Will you fall into the trap?

When West overcalled one spade over South’s one heart opener, North judged that a negative double was his best way to compete. East made a pre-emptive jump raise and South competed to four diamonds, allowing North to convert to four hearts.

South knew that his partner rated to hold only a doubleton heart, since North would have raised his partner directly with three hearts. But he had no reason to overrule his partner.

When South ruffed away the spade king at trick one, he could see the real risk of his being forced. His next move was to cash the diamond ace and king, then exit with a third diamond, taken by West with the queen as East pitched a club. West persisted with a second spade, ruffed by South again, which left East with the long trump. South could not draw trump now, but he had a neat alternative approach, thanks to dummy’s heart spots.

After ruffing the second spade, he trumped one of his established diamonds in dummy. Then he returned to hand with the club ace, ruffed his last diamond, and still had three trump tricks in hand to bring his total to 10 tricks.

Incidentally, if West had returned a trump at trick five, declarer would have drawn trump, then cashed the long diamonds and club ace, to come to 10 tricks a different way.

In today’s deal the bidding (or lack thereof) gives you a vital clue to the lie of the cards.

When West leads the spade king against six hearts, you win and draw trump in two rounds while ruffing two spades in your hand and one club in the dummy, eliminating the black suits.

West drops the black jacks on the third round of spades and clubs. This tends to suggest that if anyone holds four diamonds, it will be him. Another clue is that if West had a singleton diamond and 10 cards in the black suits, with a known good spade suit, he would surely have bid over one heart.

Taking all of this into account, you should lead the diamond eight, planning to run it. If East wins with a singleton nine, jack or queen, he will have to concede a ruff-and-discard with his return. If he wins and is able to return a diamond, the suit will break 3-2. At the table, if West covers the diamond eight, you will win dummy’s diamond ace and continue with a low diamond toward your 10. West will win the trick, but must then lead away from his remaining diamond honor, or give a ruff-and-sluff.

If the auction or play had led you to believe that East had the diamond length, you would instead cash the diamond ace and lead low toward your 10. When East rises with the queen or jack on the second round, he would then have to lead into your diamond tenace or concede the ruff-sluff.

Looking at the North-South hands, wouldn’t you expect 12 tricks to be made every day of the week? There are six top winners in the red suits, and five in the black suits. Declarer can test clubs and fall back on the spade finesse if necessary…can’t he? Up to a point, yes; but sometimes the defenders can force declarer to commit himself prematurely, and that is so in today’s deal, though it may not be obvious at first or even second glance.

At the table, the bidding saw North make a quantitative jump to four no-trump and South found a scientific way to explore for a minor-suit slam, settling in six no-trump when no club fit came to light.

When West led the diamond jack against the slam, South won with the queen. He led a heart to the king and then led back to the 10. West ducked twice, won the third heart and returned the diamond 10.

Now declarer was at the crossroads. In dummy for the last time, he had to decide what to discard on the other top diamond. Aware that the 3-3 break was against the odds, he chose to discard his small club and take the spade finesse, to go two off.

Declarer might have considered testing the clubs after two rounds of hearts were ducked, though if the hand with four clubs also has the heart ace, the contract would now fail. This seems the best line to me; but whatever the case, the credit should go to West for his thoughtful defense.

In today’s deal, with a singleton, five trump, and apparently fitting cards, South should jump directly to four spades at his second turn after discovering his partner has opening values and spade support. A bid of three spades would be purely competitive and not a game try, while a double of three hearts would be a more balanced game try.

When dummy comes down, South can count just four tricks in side suits. He therefore needs to take six trump tricks. One way is to win four trumps in his own hand and ruff two cards in the dummy. Another way is to win three trumps in the dummy and to ruff three cards in his own hand. Either way will work perfectly well, so long as South avoids drawing trump prematurely. As is usual, when you want to ruff things, don’t draw trump.

The easiest route to the cross-ruff is to trump two of clubs in dummy. The first step is to win the opening lead and try the club finesse. West wins the club king and shifts to ace and another spade, since he can the see the looming threat.

South now leads a club to his ace, ruffs a club to dummy, then ruffs a heart, and ruffs another club. At this point South can afford to draw West’s last trump. He comes to his hand by ruffing another heart and leads out his last high trump. He has taken eight tricks, and can collect his side’s diamond winners to make his contract.

Times are changing somewhat since I learned the game of bridge as to whether success can most easily obtained by playing well or making your opponents play badly. One aspect of this is whether to look for major suit fits facing a one no-trump opener, or whether to blast out three no-trump when you have a balanced hand with a four-card major, thus giving away less information.

In today’s hand I would say Stayman is optional for North, but as it turns out, South will end up in three no-trump whatever North does.

Against three no-trump West should lead the spade queen, and South must hold up dummy’s ace for two rounds in an attempt to cut the defenders’ communications. But it is the next trick that is critical for the success or failure of the contract.

When the heart queen is led from dummy, East must refuse to cover it, and he must also resist the urge to cover when the jack comes next. The point is that his own intermediates are so weak that he knows he can never build a trick for himself, much less his partner, who cannot hold more than two cards in hearts from the play thus far.

Provided East saves his king, declarer will end up one trick short in his contract. He has one spade, one club, plus three tricks in each red suit, but no more. If East covers either the first or second heart, declarer should collect four heart tricks, and East will have a red face.