When South opens one notrump, North can see that his side’s combined count is not enough to think seriously about a slam. He might have come to a different conclusion without his values in the short suits, but as it is, he should be satisfied to settle for the no-trump game.

After the initial spade lead, the fact that South has a doubleton spade in each hand means he can only count on winning two spades and four clubs. Hence, he needs to develop three tricks in the red suits.

The diamonds should provide the necessary tricks, unless East has four or more diamonds headed by the A-10. There is no danger if West has such a diamond holding, since South will eventually be able to finesse in the suit, using dummy’s diamond nine.

To guard against all the dangerous diamond breaks — except the bare ace with West — South must lead diamonds from the dummy. East ducks, since playing the ace would permit South to preserve his king and jack. South wins the first diamond with the king and can then return to dummy to lead another diamond.

Once again, (as the cards lie) East must play low, and South wins with the jack. West’s discard reveals the bad break, and South now knows that he cannot develop the diamonds in time to make the contract.

However, he can now switch his attention to hearts, and by leading that suit, he will come to his ninth trick — just in time.

This column does not always agree with the experts. In today’s deal, from the semi-finals of the NEC teams I was shocked to see two of the four Souths opening two clubs here. Both players ran into competition and were forced to describe their hand as an equal two-suiter, and in one case North ended up in six clubs (down like a stone), in one case six diamonds.

Of course six clubs isn’t much worse than six diamonds – since if clubs are 5-0, surely West could double six diamonds by North for the lead. Not today, apparently, since where North played six diamonds, West didn’t double, and East tried to cash the spade ace instead of leading a club. Since six clubs had gone four down, that was a 15 IMP swing to the eventual winners of the tournament.

In our other match, both tables managed the auction more intelligently. They reached six diamonds from the South seat, their sides’ best contract. Both Wests tried to put their partner in for the club ruff. One West led the spade nine, finding his partner with the spade ace – but that was not enough today. In the other room Sjoert Brink of the Netherlands led a low heart away from his ace. Bas Drijver could win his heart king, and then had no trouble in working out why his partner had such a degree of urgency to put him on lead. He played a club to give his partner the ruff, for a huge pickup for his team.

Today’s deal comes from the 2009 bridge match between the Lords and The Commons. It features a play that might be easy to miss at the table in the heat of the battle.

West leads the diamond king and ace against four spades before switching to the club 10. The normal’ if unthinking line of play is simply to draw trump and take the heart finesse. Can you do better?

Declarer should realize that with at least one sure heart loser, there is no reason to make the standard play in hearts. Try this approach instead: win the club switch, draw trump, then cash your club winners, ending in the dummy. Now play a heart, planning to duck the two, going up with the ace in any other case, then crossing to dummy in trump to lead a heart to the queen if East plays low. That way, if East has the heart king, you will make the same 10 tricks as you would have done had you finessed.

However, where you gain is when West has king-doubleton, as here. West will win his heart king, but will now be endplayed into giving you a ruff and discard. When he plays a minor suit, you will ruff in dummy, discarding your remaining heart loser from your hand.

One other wrinkle; if East follows with the jack on the second round, you do have the option of ducking, playing him to have mistakenly failed to unblock this card from jack-doubleton, when it is East, not West, who will be endplayed.

When I saw this deal, I was reminded of “The Man Who Knew Too Much”. After all, how could anyone go down in three hearts with trumps and diamonds lying so favorably?

It was East who reported the deal, remarking that perhaps he should have pre-balanced with two spades at his second turn – but as he commented, if his partner couldn’t balance, maybe his side would do better to remain silent.

In three hearts declarer, a very skillful player, won the spade lead in his hand and led a low heart up. West, Chris Compton, ducked smoothly, a task not many defenders would have been up to. It seemed twice as likely to declarer that West had been dealt a doubleton jack or 10 in hearts than that he had begun life with the doubleton king. So South cannot be blamed too much when he inserted the heart seven on the first round. Later he crossed to dummy to led the heart queen in an attempt to pin West’s remaining honor. This maneuver is known as an intrafinesse, but today all it succeeded in doing was losing an extra trick to the now bare heart king.

Accordingly, the defenders collected two hearts, two diamonds, and one club for down one.

It occurred to me that a weaker player would never have seen the possibility of the intrafinesse and would simply have led a heart to the queen at some point. It was lucky for East-West that they were playing the deal against an expert.

It is almost a cliché that when you have only eight tricks in a contract of three no-trump, you should play off your long suit. South used this advice to good effect on this deal.

When North opened one diamond East went out on a limb when he overcalled two clubs. Even at favorable vulnerability, space-consuming overcalls can be taken only so far. Rather than play for penalties, South quite reasonably decided to try for game. When North repeated his diamonds, South advanced with two no-trump, and was raised to game.

West started with the king and another club. East allowed declarer to win the second round with the queen, imagining he had three club tricks, the heart ace as a sure entry, and that he had diamonds under control.

South saw the prospects of success were small, as East surely held the heart ace for his overcall. His only chance lay in finding a way to exert pressure on East – which required him to guard diamonds. That meant he must hold both five clubs and four diamonds.

Since South had no side entry to hand, it would be no good to him if East held the doubleton spade jack. So at trick three declarer boldly finessed the spade 10. When this held the trick, South could cash three more spades. On the last spade East, who had already pitched his small heart, was forced to part with a winning club. So declarer could force out the heart ace, and East had only two winners to cash; contract made.

In today’s deal, North-South had only 23 points between them and no huge fit, so game would seem a long way away. However, the young Polish player Piotr Butryn had no trouble both bidding and scoring up his game.

When West led the spade jack, East needed to overtake with the ace and return a heart to set the game. At the table, though, the spade jack held the first trick. West continued with a second spade, ruffed by declarer. How would you play?

One possible line would have been to cross to dummy with the heart ace to run the club jack. However, once East has the spade ace, the odds surely favor West holding the club king for his overcall. Additionally, even if the club jack held, what would you do now? Would you take another trump finesse or switch your attack to a red suit, choosing between a diamond finesse or hoping to guess well in hearts?

Butryn went for a different line. He cashed the diamond ace and king. When this dropped the queen, he simply played clubs from the top and claimed his contract. Had the diamond queen not dropped, he would have played a third round of the suit, hoping that they broke 3-3. Then he would have won the return, crossed to dummy with the heart ace and finessed in clubs. Had the king been with East and the suit broken 2-2, he would then have made his game by discarding a heart on a diamond, then ruffing two hearts in the dummy.

One of the problems with which a declarer at no-trump is faced is when to win, and when duck, as well as which entry in the opponent’s hand to knock out. Today’s deal embodies this sort of problem.

Here you play three no-trump on the lead of the spade jack. You must duck this, to protect yourself against a possible 6-2 spade split, when West has only one ace, and you misguess which one it is. At trick two comes a spade to the ace. What next?

The play that works against most normal breaks is to cross to hand with the club ace and to lead a low diamond out of your hand. If West takes the ace, declarer has nine tricks in the form of four diamonds. When West ducks the diamond ace, the diamond queen wins in dummy and declarer shifts his attention to hearts, taking three tricks in hearts and clubs, two spades and one diamond, for nine tricks.

If East can win the first diamond and clear the spades, declarer will go down. But when West has overcalled on a relatively weak suit you would normally assume that he needs to have a reasonable hand. This makes him favorite to have both the red aces, since there are essentially no other significant high cards missing.

Had you led a diamond from dummy to the king and ace at trick three, West would have cleared spades, and one way or another West would have regained the lead to cash out his spades.

After North stretches a little to volunteer a free bid of one no-trump, South is worth the reverse to two spades. Then when North suggests a minimum hand by giving preference to three diamonds, South can make a shape-showing bid at his third turn. Now North knows that what little he has is in the right place. Therefore, he jumps to five diamonds, against which the defense by leading the heart king and continuing the suit. Declarer has three seemingly inescapable losers — but nobody ever made a contract by conceding one down. Let’s see what happens as the hand is played out.

Declarer ruffs the second heart, and cashes the diamond ace-king, hoping for the even trump break. He leaves the defenders with the master trump, and leads a spade to the ace, then takes a second heart ruff. Now a spade is led to the queen, and declarer takes a third heart ruff.

On this trick East is squeezed in an unusual fashion, since if he pitches a spade, it lets declarer run that suit to take care of dummy’s club loser. So East discards a club on the fourth heart. Declarer now cashes the club ace-king, then takes the spade king. Had spades split, declarer would discard dummy’s club loser. As it is, he ruffs his fourth spade in dummy, conceding the last trick to both the club queen and master diamond.

This sort of play, where East is squeezed in three suits one of which is trump, is often referred to as an elopement.

South’s opening bid of two clubs followed by a rebid of two no-trump shows 22 to 24 highcard points, with a balanced or semi-balanced distribution. Occasionally you may have to make the call with a flaw such as a singleton honor or two doubletons, but you strive to avoid this if you can. North has enough to raise to game, but no reason to consider playing anywhere but three notrump.

When the defenders lead a fourth-highest spade, South sees that he will win three hearts, two diamonds, and one spade. He therefore needs three club tricks to make sure of his game. The best way to get three club tricks is to finesse twice through East. Hence, South must get to dummy twice to lead clubs. South should see that the heart ace is one entry, so he needs to construct a second entry to dummy.

The spade jack is the only high card South can utilize, and there is only one way to create an entry from it. South plays dummy’s seven at trick one, then must unblock his spade queen under the king, at once. He can then reach dummy twice, and duly take two club finesses.

South should fail in his contract if he neglected to throw away the spade queen at the first trick. West would save his spade king for South’s 10 but would duck if South contributed the spade queen at the second trick. South would therefore be unable to reach dummy with the spade jack, and could then take no more than two club tricks.