After South overcalled one spade over one heart, North-South were playing a style where new suits in response to a one-level overcall were encouraging but not forcing. Thus North had to start with a cuebid of two hearts. This call showed a strong hand with at least game-invitational values, but was not forcing to game. South had a minimum so rebid his spades, which did not guarantee a sixth spade, and now North-South flirted with diamonds before settling in four spades.

Two rounds of hearts were led, which forced South to ruff. As declarer, what would you do now?

If declarer goes to dummy and takes a spade finesse, he will be disappointed with the result. West will score his queen, and now another heart lead forces another ruff. Now declarer cannot draw all the trump, and West will be ready to ruff in on the diamonds, and cash his long heart for down one

The safety play is to cash the spade ace and king early, without conceding the tempo by finessing, and then simply to lead and continue diamonds. The defense takes one heart trick and two spade tricks, but declarer has enough entries to dummy to pitch his clubs on the diamonds.

Could the defense ever work out to find the club shift at trick two? I think not, but that would allow the defenders to jump ahead in the race to establish the clubs before the diamonds can be set up.

You play six diamonds on a heart lead, and decide there are not enough entries to set up the spades. So it looks right to play on clubs.

One possibility is to take the club finesse, if necessary playing to ruff the fourth club. With the layout as in the diagram, you cannot succeed from that point on.

Another approach would be to cash the top clubs and ruff the third round low. You would be planning to ruff the fourth round of clubs high, if the queen did not fall.

The problem is that if you ruff the third club low, you risk seeing East overruff and returning a trump, when you can kiss the contract goodbye.

Can you do better? Yes you can. It looks wiser to ruff the third round of clubs with the king. You can then return to hand with a heart ruff and trump the fourth round of clubs with dummy’s remaining trump. Unless trumps break 5-0 or someone ruffs in with a singleton trump – not likely by any means – you essentially just need the first two rounds of clubs to stand up.

If you decide to follow that approach you cannot also guard against a 6-1 club break by taking one top club then crossing to dummy’s spade king to lead the second round of clubs from dummy. If you do, you might run into problems against a 5-1 spade break when the defender short in clubs has five spades. Now you would lose both an overruff on the fourth club and a spade ruff.

The art of deceptive defense comes in many forms. Sometimes you need to misrepresent your hand to your partner to get him to make the right play.

However, it may be even more satisfying to trick declarer into doing the wrong thing. Sometimes you can signal deceptive attitude about an honor in a critical suit. Equally, you may try to persuade declarer that you are threatening a ruff or over-ruff, or give false count to make declarer think a suit is breaking when it is not.

After South opens one spade and your partner overcalls two hearts, you defend to four spades. When your partner leads a top heart, you do best to signal a high-low in hearts to simulate a doubleton. If your partner leads three rounds of the suit, do you think declarer will be able to bring himself to ruff low? If he ruffs with the king, jack or 10, then you will have a trump trick and a club to come.

How would declarer play if you told the truth in hearts? Imagine that after your partner leads three rounds of hearts, declarer ruffs the third one low. His best play is then to cash the spade king, and take three rounds of diamonds finishing in dummy. Assuming they stand up, declarer discards a club from hand, then passes the spade jack. This line succeeds so long as West started with a singleton spade or the doubleton queen and two or three diamonds, since either the finesse will win or West will be end-played.

South’s two club opening is based on the fact that his 22-count should be upgraded, rather than downgraded into a two no-trump opener. His combined honors (and great controls plus absence of jacks) make this a clear choice.

North-South should have a Stayman auction after the two no-trump rebid to allow South to play three no-trump. Just as you can check for the major-suit fits over the one no-trump opening, so the three club bid over the two no-trump opening or rebid allows you to find your fits, one level higher.

On the diamond queen lead, there is no good reason to win the trick – maybe the opponents will shift? When the defenders continue diamonds, South must win and try to find a way to turn eight tricks into nine.

The right technique is to cash the top three clubs at once — if the suit splits, all your problems are over. When West shows length, you must turn your attention to hearts, but you need to be careful with the entry position. Take one top heart from hand, and then go over to dummy’s ace. When West shows out you have a marked finesse of the heart 10 for your ninth trick. If you play the ace then king of hearts, you find out about the bad break in hearts but the absence of entries to the board mean you can no longer get to dummy to take the marked finesse.

When South competes to three spades because of his sixth trump, West might consider bidding four clubs. But it looks normal to pass and lead the club seven to East’s ten.

East now cashes the club ace and plays a trump, and South needs to establish a heart trick in order to find a home for his slow diamond loser; is this a case of bricks without straw? Not quite.

Declarer’s heart spots offer him some slim chances. South wins the trump switch and leads the heart eight, and West takes his king and shifts to the diamond two. South wins in hand, cashes a second top spade, then runs the heart seven round to East’s jack.

Now East exits with the diamond jack, won in dummy, and South has to work out what is happening in hearts. To do so, he must guess what is going on in diamonds. East would surely have shifted to a diamond at trick three from Q-J-9. Given that, the fall of the spotcards might suggest East began with only a doubleton diamond, to go with six clubs and one spade. Thus West has only one heart left – and it won’t be the ace. Declarer must lead the heart queen from dummy and run it, discarding his diamond loser, when East ducks stoically.

At double dummy, East can do better by putting his partner in at trick two with a club for the diamond shift. Now the defense are ahead in the race to establish their extra red-suit winner.

I’ll let you be the judge of whether someone made a very good or bad play to generate a slam swing here, or whether you might have made the mistake that was committed at the table. In today’s deal at both tables six no-trump was reached in short order and the club five led .

In both rooms declarer led a spade to the king, and at one table East took his ace. As declarer, in which order would you cash your winners now?

South did well to cash hearts early, knowing no competent defender would unguard that suit, but that the rest of his distribution might be less clear. On the third heart East discarded a club, and now the rest of the top clubs forced East to discard, revealing he had begun with only three clubs. The late Jean Besse referred to the small clubs as neutrinos and emphasized that defenders had to be careful to avoid such revealing plays.

After taking the rest of the top spades, South discovered West’s original shape had to be precisely 3=4=2=4. So declarer took the diamond ace and king and finessed the diamond 10. Nicely done.

In the other room both the first and second spades were ducked; now declarer could not afford to play a third spade. He cashed all the clubs and hearts, finding some information but not enough to be sure on the spade count. So eventually he went with the percentages and played diamonds from the top; one down.

South is grateful to receive a diamond lead against four hearts since it prevents the defenders from having a chance to cash two spade winners. Even so, after a trump shift at trick two South can afford to lose only one trick in total from hearts and clubs.

South draws two rounds of trump with the king and queen, finds the bad break, and must now focus on handling clubs without loss. He takes the diamond queen discarding a spade, then cashes the club king and ace, but must not then lead out the club queen. If he does, West will ruff high, cash the spade ace and return a trump, leaving declarer with a club loser.

South gains nothing by leading the high club even if clubs are three-three. Better is to try to ruff the third round of clubs with dummy’s remaining trump. He would then plan to return to his hand by ruffing a diamond, would cash the ace of trumps, and lead good clubs until West takes his trump trick.

As it happens, West ruffs the third club high and does best to lead a low spade through dummy’s king.

Under ordinary circumstances, South would try to guess where the spade ace and queen were. But here if East can gain the lead with a spade, he will lead another club, and West will ruff in again, for the setting trick. East cannot be shut out if he has the spade ace, so South puts up dummy’s king – just in case – and scores an unexpected overtrick.

When South opens one club North should introduce his heart suit, weak as it is, rather than support clubs. If South has four hearts this may be the only way to find the fit.

Without a four-card fit for hearts, South continues with his original plan to rebid in notrump. North knows to raise notrump rather than chase the rainbow of a minor-suit game.

In three no-trump on a top spade lead South can see that he has nine tricks if the club finesse succeeds. What if it fails? South should conclude that he will need a diamond trick if that is the case.

If South errs by leading clubs at trick two East will win and will knock out the spade ace. Then West will gain the lead with the diamond ace to run the rest of the spades. So South must lead diamonds first to knock out the sure entry in the hand of the dangerous opponent. The diamond ace is a sure entry for West, but if that player has the club king, it will do him no good.

When South plays on diamonds, West can take the first diamond and lead another spade, and he will thus set up his suit. But when South ducks one spade he can ensure that West will never regain the lead to cash his tricks. East will later get in with the club king, but will then be out of spades.

If West ducks the first diamond, South of course changes tack and develops the clubs for his nine winners.

Can you see the curious symmetry in the play and defense of today’s deal?

It would have been a mistake for South to open one club instead of one no-trump here. You can occasionally open a suit if you downgrade your 15 HCP, or upgrade your 17 HCP into a balanced 18-19. But these are very much the exceptions rather than the rule.

West leads a top spade against three no-trump, and when declarer puts up the king, East wins and returns a low spade. It is not clear who has the long spades, so South ducks the spade and wins the third, pitching a diamond from dummy. Now come four rounds of hearts, East discarding two diamonds.

The crux of the deal comes when South innocently leads the club nine from dummy. If East plays low, declarer runs the nine to West’s jack. The defenders have a spade to cash, but with the club king onside, South has the rest. Notice that if East covers the club nine with the king, West will be left with two club stoppers not one.

The parallel comes in South’s correctly putting up one of the black kings at trick one, and East doing the same at trick eight. The bottom line is that when you have a doubleton honor it is generally correct to cover a significant card led by dummy, should there be no realistic chance that you can score a trick with that card if you retain it. The trick, of course, is to determine what card is significant.