In today’s deal North tries for a grand slam but signs off in six hearts when South cannot bid more than six diamonds over the five no-trump enquiry. (South would have done more with the diamond queen instead of the jack).

When West leads the club jack, South wins the ace and takes one top diamond. If no large diamond appears on his right or left, declarer might well simply draw all the trumps and play a second diamond to the jack. This line would succeed unless East had begun with a singleton diamond.

However, when the diamond 10 appears from East, South decides to take it at face value. He draws two rounds of trump ending in dummy, cashes two spades to pitch his club loser, then leads a diamond toward his own hand, while leaving one trump outstanding.

If East discards on the second diamond, South will win with the king, and give up a diamond. This leaves him in position to ruff a fourth diamond with dummy’s high trump.

However, since nothing can be gained by discarding, East ruffs the second round of diamonds and plays back a spade. South trumps, and can cash the diamond king, then ruff a diamond for his contract.

As an aside, maybe West could persuade you to go wrong if he started life with Q-10-9-3 by dropping the 10 on the first round? You might then draw all the trump before playing a second diamond, and be left with two diamond losers.

Most US experts play two over one as game forcing. But in competitive auctions two over one at the two level should not be forcing to game. It should show values but does not guarantee a rebid – anything that sounds non-forcing thereafter should be non-forcing.

Thus in today’s auction North’s raise to three hearts could be passed. South might well bid three no-trump over three hearts, (though it isn’t clear which game is best – it depends on who has the diamond ace).

Against four hearts West leads a top spade, and South has to guess whether to win or duck. He does well to hold up, to cut the defenders’ communications. If West continues spades, declarer wins, and lead a diamond to dummy’s king and comes to 10 tricks relatively easily.

But West does better to shift to a club at trick two, attacking declarer’s late entry for the diamonds. Declarer wins in hand and leads a diamond to the king, ducked by East. Now declarer draws two rounds of trump with the king and ace and leads a diamond to the 10 and jack. Back comes a second club, and declarer must win in dummy and lead a third diamond, subsequently using dummy’s last trump as the entry for the diamonds.

If East plays back a spade not a club after winning the diamond jack, declarer takes this in hand and must draw the last trump – if he plays the third diamond before doing so, West ruffs his partner’s winner to cash a spade for down one.

One of the most difficult and controversial areas of bridge is how to signal in a suit contract at trick one when an honor is led that will hold the trick, while dummy puts down a singleton.

There are two schools of thought: for what it is worth, I am closer to the first position, but the second is more popular. The first says “Signal attitude in the usual fashion if continuation is possibly correct. Only if continuation makes no sense do you use suit preference, low for the lower possible suit, high for the higher.”

The second more mainstream school suggests that everything is about suit preference when there are two possible suits to shift to. But if there is only one possible shift, encouraging the opening lead says don’t shift to the obvious suit.

In today’s deal West leads the heart king against four spades, and the singleton in dummy should affect what East’s signals ought to mean.

Here he should play the heart three, suggesting a high honor in clubs – clearly the ace from West’s point of view. So West shifts to the club four and the defense takes the next three tricks with the club ace, jack and king.

By contrast if East had the diamonds under control and no club honor he would follow with a high heart at trick one, and West could exit in diamonds. That would allow the defenders to collect whatever winners they are entitled to in due course.

After South opens one spade, North is too strong to raise to two spades but is not quite right for a limit raise to three spades. He plans to describe this hand by first bidding a forcing no-trump, then raising to three spades. However, when South shows a sixth spade, North should just up and bid game. A raise to three spades would be right were the spade jack the club jack.

After East wins the first two hearts and shifts to a club, South wins and can see he might lose two hearts, one diamond and one club. His best chance is to establish a long diamond, which will be easy if diamonds split three-three. But if they split four-two, dummy’s entries must be handled carefully.

South must duck a diamond at trick four. When West wins and returns a club, South can afford to cash only one high spade from his hand, since dummy’s trumps will be needed for entries to the diamonds. He then leads a diamond to the ace, ruffs a diamond high, leads a trump to dummy, ruffs another diamond high, and leads one more trump to dummy.

Trump having finally been drawn, South is in dummy where he wants to be, to cash the long diamond for his 10th trick.

Note that if South draws even one round of trump before ducking the diamond, the defense could then play a second round of spades, using up one of dummy’s entries prematurely. In turn, the defenders could set the game by shifting to trump at trick three.

As South in four hearts you can see you have one club and two diamonds losers off the top. Your first instinct might be to go for spade ruffs in dummy, but the problem with re-entries to hand makes this awkward.

Imagine you ruff a spade in dummy, cross to your club winner and ruff a second spade. So far so good; but when you draw trump, the bad break means you will never establish your long club.

Curiously, you can survive a 4-1 trump break, but not a 4-1 club break, when you would simply have four top minor-suit losers. Once you spot this, you may see the winning line of taking your spade ace and ducking a club at trick two. This allows you to be more flexible by retaining club entries to both hands.

If the defenders play on diamonds, you ruff two diamonds in hand, drawing trump with dummy’s excellent spots. If they play on spades, you ruff two spades in dummy, making South the master hand.

Equally, if the defense returns hearts, you win in hand, ruff a spade, return to hand with a trump, and ruff a second spade. That lets you play a club to your hand, draw trump and concede two diamonds at the end for 10 tricks.

The lesson of this hand is that when you have a 4-4 trump fit, you do not have to decide on the master hand immediately. You may need to wait until you have set up your ruffs. Equally, remember to protect your entries to retain trump control.

At matchpoints it looks reasonable to play three no-trump here. After all, the defense have eight hearts between them, as well as eight spades, and a heart lead gives you an easy route to nine tricks.

However, today West has a natural spade lead, and then the spotlight is going to be on East, and specifically on the partnership lead style. West wants to lead the spade king, to have his partner unblock the jack if he has it. After all, (short of some illegal body language) how can East show the jack if all he has is the three and two to encourage with?

It is for that reason that at notrump some partnerships play that the lead of a king shows a very good suit, requesting an unblock of a jack or queen. That makes this defensive problem easy today.

As you can see, if West knows to continue spades, he makes declarer’s task in three no-trump challenging. Declarer must duck two spades, then pitch a club from dummy on the third spade. Now what? The answer is to cross to dummy and lead a diamond toward the king, planning to duck if East plays the queen. When declarer’s king holds, he leads back a diamond. If West carelessly follows with the 10, declarer can duck without a care in the world. If West plays the jack, declarer will have to guess if West started life with two or with three diamonds. I don’t envy him his problem as to whether to win or duck this trick.

This is a hand where it is necessary to plan ahead, to envisage what might go wrong, and how to circumnavigate the problems.

When West led the club queen against four hearts, South was optimistic that the lead had solved one of his problems. But since there was a chance that the opening lead was a singleton, declarer won in hand and set about trump immediately, finding he had a loser there. Next he played a diamond. East captured the king with the ace and switched to a spade, to the king and ace. West cashed the master trump, then got off play safely with a diamond. Now there was no way for South to avoid a second spade loser, and that proved to be the setting trick.

If South had taken the club queen lead on trust, and assumed he had no loser in that suit, he could have succeeded by playing on diamonds at trick two, before touching trump. East will naturally capture dummy’s king with the ace, and probably return a spade. (Note that if East can give West a club ruff, the defense will be trumping a loser).

Assume West wins the spade ace and exits in diamonds. South ruffs, and plays his top hearts, discovering he has a loser there. But he can next eliminate clubs, and West will be endplayed in trump, sooner or later. Now that player is forced to lead round to South’s spade tenace, or give a ruff and discard.

This same sequence of plays is available after a club play at trick four.

North has a tailor-made hand for a jump to three spades at his second turn, showing extras and four trumps. With as little as the spade jack in addition to his values, he might make a jump to four clubs, a splinter bid setting spades as trump and showing the values for game.

In turn, though, South has enough to drive to slam. Depending on whether he is playing Blackwood or Keycard Blackwood, and what responses his side plays, the auction may follow slightly different routes, but North-South should find a way to end up in slam.

Against small slams there is no reason for West not to lead his best suit, hoping for a fast or slow club trick, together with a winner in trumps or hearts. Aggression is generally key against small slam, passivity against a grand slam.

In turn, East should win the first trick and return a club. Why? To weaken dummy’s trump — imagine the club king and club queen were switched to see what I mean.

South wins the club king (if he ruffs this trick in dummy he is dead). Now he leads the spade king, to retain flexibility in the trump suit. Since he won’t be expecting to negotiate jack-tenfourth in trump in either defender’s hand, he must ensure he does succeed when either opponent has a singleton spade honor.

Once the spade 10 appears from East, it will be easy to follow up with the spade queen and subsequently to finesse against West in spades to make the contract.

The parable of the wise and foolish virgins can be metaphorically extended to the world of bridge players. There are those players who go for instant gratification, while others plan ahead, and are prepared to trade off the delight of winning a trick for higher expectations further down the line. Today’s deal is a good example of how it can be worthwhile to invest a trick to good effect.

The hand cropped up in a team game, played for high stakes, with both tables reaching three no-trump on an unopposed auction and receiving a low spade lead to East’s 10. The first declarer won the opening lead and took a club finesse. East wasted no time in winning his club king and returning the spade eight. Whatever declarer did, he was fated to lose four spade tricks and to go one down in his contract.

By contrast, the second declarer was prepared to delay taking a trick to try to ensure his contract. He ducked the spade 10, and then went one further, ducking the second spade as well. East led a third spade, and West could win his ace, but now nothing could prevent South from taking a club finesse into the safe hand, East, and emerging with nine tricks.

The key here is that declarer can be reasonably sure West is the hand long in spades, while East is the hand with the potential club entry. If the club ace and king are switched, it may still be right to play for split aces, but the calculation is far more complex.