Today’s deal looks very straightforward, but you will have to keep your wits about you to make the right play, after North makes a calculated overbid when he bids four spades over four hearts. Technically, the call is unjustified, but once in a while you have to stretch in auctions where the opponents preempt.

To start with, when the defenders lead two rounds of hearts, you must take care to ruff the second heart with a high intermediate, preserving an entry to dummy. Play a spade to dummy and a second trump. East wins his king and exits with the club queen, which you duck. When you win the club ace and ruff a club, everyone following, you can trump dummy’s remaining heart high, at which point you have now achieved a complete count on the hand… haven’t you?

Since you’ve seen all the spades appear, and East has discarded on the third heart, and West has followed to three clubs, you have seen 12 of his 13 cards.

That lets you lead a diamond to the ace. Because you have retained the spade seven in dummy and the six in hand you can lead a diamond towards your hand, and when East splits his honors you can cross back to dummy and repeat the diamond finesse.

If you had not unblocked in trumps, you would not have an entry to dummy at trick 11, and East could split his honors to defeat the contract.

Today’s deal sees an interesting problem for East. You may care to focus just on your own hand and North, the dummy, while covering up the other two hands.

After overcalling one spade over one club, you see your partner lead the spade seven. What is your plan to find a way to five tricks on defense?

It looks logical to take the first spade with the queen and shift to hearts – and perhaps the heart jack is the best card. But realistically can this ever beat the contract? If your partner has decent hearts, the club suit is surely running for declarer.

No, paradoxically, East must duck the first trick rather than taking his king or queen, playing the most encouraging spot card in his methods. Declarer will win cheaply and play a club towards dummy’s queen. West will rise with the ace to return a spade. East can then win the second club and run the spades.

This duck compels declarer to win the first spade, while your partner still has a spade to return when in with the club ace. Note that your play will not give declarer a free trick in spades, since the auction marks him with a second spade guard.

Also note that your partner must win the first club and knock out declarer’s last spade stopper while you retain the club king as an entry. If your partner holds up in clubs, you will be forced to win the club king before your spades are established.

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.