Some people play South’s two no-trump response shows a balanced 13 to 15 points, with no four-card major, while others would bid three no-trump with this hand. Here when South shows his minimum game-force, North can raise to three notrump without considering any other action.

After a spade lead South can determine that to make game he needs a total of four tricks from the minor suits. Each suit will easily furnish three tricks but no more, so South will need to utilize both suits in some fashion to make his game.

If South follows a straightforward approach, the opponents are likely to win an ace, then knock out the spade queen. They will now be in position to take their second ace and run the spades, defeating the contract.

South must therefore try to steal one trick in clubs or diamonds. He can then switch to the other suit, and make his game by knocking out the second ace.

There is little chance to engineer a swindle in clubs, but the diamonds are a horse of a different color. South should lead the diamond jack at trick two, as though planning a finesse against the queen. Even though South owns the diamond queen, his opponents don’t know this.

As South hopes, West plays low on the diamond jack, since it is far from clear that he wants to stop South from losing a finesse to East’s presumed diamond queen.

Having thus stolen a diamond trick, South can shift his attention to clubs and ensure his nine tricks.

As declarer, it is a sound philosophy when in a good contract, to consider which distributions might lead to problems, then to plan how to deal with them.

With a real bust and three or four trumps North would have issued a second negative of three clubs, rather than raise directly. So South could jump to six spades – knowing that even if there was no heart control in dummy he could surely ruff his clubs good, if necessary.

When West led a top diamond, declarer saw that if either clubs or trumps broke, he would make at least 12 tricks. The real issue was how to cope with 4-1 clubs and 3-1 trumps. He might have no winning line if West had the critical trump length and short clubs; but what if East held the critical combination in the black-suits?

Declarer thoughtfully ruffed the diamond ace high, then cashed the club ace. When everyone followed, South now wanted to ensure that if East held a singleton club, he could be prevented from ruffing away a winner.

Accordingly, South next overtook his spade seven with dummy’s eight and led a club. Appreciating the position, East discarded – best, since had he ruffed in, South’s life would have been easy. South won the club king, then re-entered dummy by overtaking the trump nine with the 10.

Dummy’s third club was played, and again East declined to ruff, so South’s queen scored. The losing club was ruffed in dummy, the South hand was re-entered with a diamond ruff, and East’s last trump drawn for 12 tricks.

Someone once made the point to me that it isn’t the disasters one experiences at the table that lead to the partnership breakups, it is the post mortems. In a team game today’s deal produced an example of precisely how not to gain friends and influence people.

In one room, against four spades, West led the heart queen. When there is a singleton in dummy, many use third hand’s card as suit preference, rather than length-showing or attitude, though this is very much a matter for partnership agreement. When East contributed the nine under the queen, West continued with a low diamond. East rose with the ace and played back the two. Declarer played low, the king won, and it was all over for the defense.

In the other room East thought more deeply and realized that the first diamond lead must come from the East hand. So East overtook his partner’s heart queen at trick one and returned the diamond jack – surrounding North’s 10. It should not have mattered what South did; he was well on his way to losing three diamond tricks. However when East returned the jack, South covered with the queen without a care in the world. West put on the king, and then… switched to a club.

When they scored up the deal as a flat board, East, who had shown remarkable self-control till that point, asked his partner why he had shifted, and received the even more painful response that he didn’t think his partner was aware of the existence of that play.

Today’s deal is the third and final hand this month to come from Larry Cohen’s latest book: “Larry Teaches Declarer Play at Suit contracts”, most easily available from his website. Larry is one of the country’s leading teachers and writers. I recommend his latest book for intermediate players.

Against your six heart contract, West leads the diamond king. Both players have taken a slightly aggressive position, South to jump to four hearts (he was too good to open with that call), North to drive to slam with no club control.

The opening lead is unfortunate for you; without it, you could knock out the club ace, then throw a diamond on dummy’s club jack. But now, to pitch the diamond loser you must set up dummy’s spades.

You are very short of entries to accomplish this, so you should not draw trump prematurely, since dummy’s entries are in the trump suit itself. The plan is to take both top spades and trump a spade high. Only a 5-1 (or 6-0) spade break would cause a problem, in which case you may go down an extra trick but it will hardly affect your result, be it at pairs or teams.

Now the point is that even with 4-2 spades, declarer has the entries (because of the heart jack and eight) to trump two spades in hand. After that, you can in due course draw trump ending in dummy. On the fifth round of spades you can jettison your losing diamond and lose only to the club ace.

When North bid three diamonds after his partner transferred to hearts, it showed a nonminimum with heart fit. That got South to four hearts, against which West led his singleton trump. That turned out to be his least damaging lead.

Declarer next led out a second high trump, discovering the three-one break. At that point he ran the club jack to West, who found himself endplayed. If he returned a club, declarer would get a free finesse. If West, instead, returned a diamond, declarer would let it ride around to his queen. West chose the least of the evils by leading ace and another spade.

Declarer could now infer that West has the missing club honor or he would surely have exited in clubs. He could reach dummy with a third round of trump, to ruff the spade jack in hand. Next he cashed the club ace, and threw West in once more with a third round of clubs.

Caught in a second end-play, West could no longer get out safely. If he led another spade, dummy would ruff, while South discarded his losing diamond. It is for this reason that dummy must still hold a trump when the end-play takes place. This in turn explains why declarer left a trump outstanding at trick four when he took the first club finesse.

Since West knew that a spade return would be absolutely hopeless, he had finally to open up diamonds in the four-card ending, and South could run the lead round to his queen and claim 10 tricks.

Today, you will be faced with two problems. First play three no-trump on the given hands after the lead of the spade jack. Then play the same contract, but with the club eight not the seven in hand.

With the given cards, your best chance comes from the clubs. Cash the club ace and continue the suit, if both follow. Even if East has king-jack-third, and shifts to a low heart you will simply play low from hand. Then the best the defense can do is to take two heart tricks and two clubs.

But say East had four clubs, as here. Now if you play a second club the defense will win the race to establish West’s spades. So your only hope for a ninth trick is in the heart suit.

Best is to lead a low heart towards the jack. This works when East has the ace or West has the heart queen. Here, West will rise with the queen and play a spade. You will win and force out the heart ace by playing a low heart to dummy’s jack. As indicated above, if East had the heart queen you would need him also to have the heart ace.

So what difference does the club eight make? You can ensure your contract by leading a club toward the queen initially. If East has four clubs he does best to win and return a spade. You win and lead a club to the nine, then use diamond entries to dummy to finesse in clubs and establish the suit for your nine tricks.

When North is only worth a simple raise of spades at his second turn, South contents himself with a bid of four spades. Since both players have minimum opening bids, there is no reason for a slam try (a jump to four hearts would be a splinter – appropriate if South had king-fourth of diamonds, say).

After winning the heart lead in dummy, South can see that he might lose a trump and three diamond tricks. One discard on dummy’s high heart seems irrelevant. South may be able to discard another diamond on dummy’s fourth club, but only after trump have been drawn.

South’s best play might be a deceptive move at trick two. He should lead the heart ace from dummy and discard the low club from his hand, creating the impression that he is weak in clubs.

Declarer now takes the trump finesse. West wins with the spade king and is likely to return the club 10. South can now win the club ace, draw the remaining trump, and cash the club queen. He then enters dummy with a trump to discard a losing diamond on the club king. When both opponents follow to the third club, dummy’s last club takes care of a second losing diamond.

West’s best chance to defeat the game comes if East can signal suit preference on the second heart — and maybe on the first trump as well. A high heart at trick two, and maybe the spade six on the first trump might tip West off to South’s devious plan.

These days Bergen raises have become very popular, though I’m not a huge fan myself. After an opening bid of a major by his partner, responder jumps to three hearts with preemptive values, and uses three clubs or three diamonds to show various sorts of four-card raises.

Here you sit East after North makes a three diamond call to show a limit raise with four trump, and South has accepted the invitation. West leads the club four to your ace. Plan the defense.

At the table East correctly diagnosed that the lead was a likely singleton, so he gave his partner a ruff, but this left West with no way to take two more tricks. That player tried the effect of ace and another diamond, but declarer claimed the balance.

East should have foreseen that if he gave his partner a ruff immediately it would set up a lot of tricks for declarer. Best defense was first to switch to the diamond queen – playing partner for the diamond ace or both the diamond king and trump ace.

If declarer ducks the queen, you can give partner a ruff; if he covers, partner can put you in again with your diamond jack, and only now do you give him the ruff.

By the way, if you were to ask me how to play the direct raise to three of partner’s major, I could happily live with it showing mixed (6-9 HCP) values, while using three clubs and three diamonds either as limit with three and four trump respectively, or just as natural and invitational.

Zia Mahmood famously contributed a BOLS Bridge Tip entitled ‘When they don’t cover, they don’t have it’, Curiously though, he failed to use his own good advice on this deal from the 2010 Philadelphia world championships. Plan the play in three notrump on the lead of the diamond five. You play dummy’s ace and East encourages with the jack.

A simple analysis is that you have eight top winners and need one of the spade or heart finesses. But if you pick the wrong suit, the defenders will surely run the diamonds against you. If you trust your opponents to make helpful discards, you should run the clubs and see which if the major suits your LHO appears to be guarding.

(For the record, in situations of this sort, you should delay asking what discards your opponents play until they have both let go a card. There is no reason to tip them off if their discards might affect your play – they are more likely to be honest if they think you don’t care!)

But let’s assume you are playing against competent opponents, who may gauge the position and try to disguise their holdings in the majors.

How about winning the opening lead and advancing dummy’s spade jack? It may be very hard for East to follow low without a flicker – if he has the king and doesn’t cover he could easily have presented you with an unmakeable contract.

If East plays low without apparent discomfort, rise with the ace and later finesse against the heart king.