Today’s deal has something of a contrived air to it, but it is entirely logical, so long as you apply yourself in the right way.

After West opens one heart, South has a choice of balancing actions. It is standard expert practice (not that this means too much these days!) to use a call of two no-trump in protective seat as natural and strong not the minors. So South balances with two no-trump and North raises to game.

On the lead of the heart king, South knows both missing kings are on the left and that West has five hearts. It looks easy to strip out his clubs and endplay him to lead one of those suits for you, but one more trick is not sufficient. The problem is that the run of the hearts will squeeze your own hand. Even if you only cash two clubs, you will find that on the run of the hearts dummy has to come down to two cards in each of spades and diamonds, and you must also come down to a doubleton in one of those suits, letting West exit in that suit.

The winning line is to play West for a singleton club. Win the second heart, cash just one club then exit in hearts, planning to pitch two clubs from hand, while letting go a diamond and a spade from dummy. On West’s forced exit in either diamonds or spades win dummy’s jack, then take your ace in the other suit, (the Vienna Coup) and now run the clubs to squeeze West.

Put yourself in the shoes of East, defending three no-trump. Your partner leads the club jack, which goes to the two, seven and king. After a diamond to dummy, South plays a spade to his jack and West’rsquo;s queen. West continues with the club 10, which goes to dummy’s queen, and your ace. Plan the defense.

Your first reaction might well be to try to cash out the clubs, but if your partner started with a club holding such as J-10-9-x in clubs, there is no hurry to return a club right now, because you know that you will have a second chance. You can always cash out when you get on lead with your spade trick. But what if your partner started with a club holding such as J-10-x? If so, you need to switch to a heart now. And you should shift to the heart nine, so that if declarer finesses your partner can win and revert to clubs, setting up your long club for you, when you get in with your spade winner.

There is a good reason to play for this second position. First of all it covers far more possibilities than the chance that the clubs are blocked, when partner has precisely J-10-9. More importantly, if your partner’s original club holding included both the club nine and 10, he should surely have shifted to the nine not the 10 at the previous trick. After all, he knows you are aware he has the 10 – but you do not know about the nine.

South is full value for his overcall of one spade. He has excellent intermediates and three sure spade tricks, no matter how the suit may break. Additionally, the strong hearts should provide two or more tricks on any but the most unlucky day. Since North would want to reach game opposite an opening bid but has no real slam interest, he should simply bid game and not give the opponents a chance to come back in.

After the lead of the diamond 10 the defenders take their top diamonds and ruff a diamond before South can get started. At this point South needs the rest of the tricks. At first glance it seems that the contract will depend on the heart finesse. If South looks no further he will draw trump and lead the heart jack from dummy. That will prove unlucky – but not that unlucky since South will have overlooked his extra chance.

Consider that West may have started out with only two trumps. South can lose nothing by trying for this possibility. At trick four South comes to hand with a trump to lead the established diamond nine. If West can ruff in, dummy will over-ruff; then declarer will draw another round of trump and fall back on the heart finesse.

But fortunately for South, today West will be unable to ruff his diamond winner. Now declarer can discard a heart from the dummy on the diamond nine, then cash the heart ace, and cross-ruff the hand in peace and quiet.

In three no-trump after a spade lead East won with the ace and returned the nine, won by South with the king. As it happened that false card fooled nobody except perhaps dummy – since both defenders, from the carding to date, knew exactly who held the spade queen.

Declarer continued with the club king, catering for a possible singleton queen, then played a second club, to the jack and queen. Appreciating that South was now cut off from his own hand, East returned his last club – a good choice rather than the more superficially attractive option of a diamond. Stuck on the table, declarer cashed the rest of his clubs, but then was forced to lead hearts, losing three tricks in the suit and ending one light.

Can you see where South went wrong? It was by cashing the club king at trick three. The best play here is to take a first-round finesse, by leading the four to dummy’s jack. If East wins with the queen, no return can harm declarer. He still has the club king in place as an entry to his diamond ace and spade queen. After that, a heart to dummy will allow him to be reunited with his established clubs.

Ducking the first round of clubs will not help the defense; it makes it easier for South to come to 10 tricks. Just for the record though, it might be a different story if West held queen-fourth of clubs. But that would be somewhat against the odds, of course.

At the Dyspeptics Club East has often disparagingly referred to his task on defense as being like Hercules fighting Cerberus, the three-headed dog. Except in this case he considers the third opposing head to be that of his partner.

After East-West had competed accurately to five hearts, then let North play five spades, one can hardly blame West for leading a top heart rather than a club. East thoughtfully overtook with his ace and shifted to a club to South’s jack and West’s king.

South had little option but to win the ace, draw the trump, then ruff his heart in hand and exit with a club. As it turned out, West could have won the club nine, but he saw no reason to waste such a valuable commodity, and so East was forced to take the trick.

When he exited with a diamond, declarer played low. Now West went from penny-wise to pound-foolish, wasting his jack and letting declarer bring in the diamonds for no loser. Contract made.

No stranger to the world of hostile post-mortems, South expansively informed the world how lucky he had been. Perhaps he was hoping to get a rise out of East – but that player remained curiously silent. Can you see why?

While West’s defense was clearly inferior, if East had counted out the hand he would have given declarer a ruff-sluff after winning the second club, and taken his partner off the hook. Declarer can ruff the third club in either hand, but he will still be left with a diamond loser whatever he does.

How should the defense go against four spades in today’s deal?

When West leads the diamond king, East can see that it is possible that if declarer has the heart jack in addition to his other assets, but a 5-4-3-1 pattern, then the defenders must cash their three diamond winners on the go, or the third diamond gets away on dummy’s winning club. In that case he would need to overtake the diamond king and return the suit.

But the actual lie of the cards looks slightly more likely. Here East must duck the first diamond, and West must not continue the suit. Instead he can see from his own hand that the defenders must prevent heart ruffs, so he must shift to a trump, leaving his partner with a re-entry for a second trump play.

Declarer wins the trump shift on table and leads a heart to the queen. West takes his king and plays a low diamond to East’s ace. Now a second trump from East leaves South a trick short; he has eight winners, and a ninth will comes from a heart ruff, but there is no possibility of another trick against sound defense.

It is always challenging to shift to trump in this sort of position. The risk exists that you are chopping up partner’s trump holding, whereas if left to his own devices declarer would lose an additional trick. However, the knowledge that declarer needs heart ruffs in dummy means that the trick will be favorite to come back one way or another.

After inspecting dummy in today’s deal, South remarked that his chances might well depend upon who held the club two. His opponents snickered, but as the play developed, it became clear that South had a valid point.

Against three no-trump, West sensibly opted for the heart jack on opening lead. East was allowed to win his top hearts, and then switched to a spade. Declarer won on the table and saw he needed to develop the clubs for a second trick.

He began by leading the club jack from the board, which East won with his ace to continue spades. He expected South to play off his club king, after which East would be left with the queen-nine over dummy’s jackfour and two more defensive tricks.

East was in for a disappointment, though, for declarer won the spade continuation on the table and continued with the club 10. This went to the queen, king and eight. All that remained for South was to force out East’s nine and establish a second club trick. In fact South, ever the showman, led the club six to dummy’s four. On winning East’s return, he cashed everything else before scoring the club three at trick 13, dropping East’s two.

South’s play works whenever East has started with four clubs including the ace, queen and two. And the action and play to the first few tricks had marked East with both high clubs. On a different day you might prefer initially to lead a low club towards the jack-10.

Against four hearts West leads a low spade to East’s jack. As South, what is your plan to make 10 tricks?

In order to make four hearts, you need two club tricks. So, unless East has a singleton club ace, you will need clubs to be 3-2. Best is to win the spade king, cash the spade ace and ruff a spade low. Next you should lead a club from dummy. When the club ace fails to appear from East, your club king will win the trick.

Be careful! There is a winning defense if you continue with a low club next. West will win the trick with the jack and switch to the diamond jack. You must ruff the second round of diamonds and play a club, but East will win and force you again with the diamond ace. You must ruff again, and now West will eventually score a trump trick to set the contract.

The way around this disagreeable outcome is to continue with the club queen instead of a low club at trick five. East will win the club ace and does best to cash the diamond ace, but will probably exit with a spade, hoping that he can promote a trump trick in West’s hand. Instead, you will throw a diamond from hand and ruff with dummy’s trump nine. You will then draw trump and give up a club.

If East instead plays back a trump rather than the fourth spade, you draw trump and give up a club, having retained control.