The Lords and Commons meet one another in an inter-parliamentary struggle in England every year. The House of Lords won this year’s match, and lead the series 22-19.

Some of the deals they play are set up with a subtle point in the play. Today’s deal first appeared in a large pairs competition and featured a challenge for declarer.

At many tables South opened one club in third seat and West overcalled one spade, a bid which should have influenced declarer’s line of play. As South, how do you play three no-trump after a low spade lead, the six, to East’s jack?

Many declarers quickly took the king, unblocked the heart king and tried to force an entry to table with a diamond. This line failed when East took the king and fired back a spade to leave declarer with five losers. After a one spade overcall it is clear that spades are going to break 5-2 (or even 6-1) and it cannot cost to let the spade jack hold the first trick. If declarer does that, then the game can no longer be defeated. A spade return is won by West’s 10, but that player has nothing he can do. If he abandons spades declarer can always make five hearts, two diamonds and two clubs for his contract. If he cashes the spade ace, declarer again comes to nine tricks by unblocking hearts then leading up to the diamond queen.

The hold-up is clear-cut if West has overcalled one spade; it is less clearly correct if there has been no opposition bidding.

Imagine that you are declaring four hearts on the lead of the diamond jack. You are playing either teams or rubber bridge, where succeeding in your contract is of paramount importance, and the possibility of making an overtrick is of far less significance.

You win the diamond ace, and have to decide what your target is in terms of winners and losers. A simple but unlucky line would be to take a spade finesse. It would lose, back would come the club jack, and you can kiss all hopes of making your contract goodbye, as the cards lie. That would be a little unlucky – since you only went down because of two finesses lost.

Let’s regroup. Maybe it is better to go to dummy with the trump king, take your spade discard, and try a club finesse. Alas for you, West wins and leads three more rounds of clubs, promoting the heart 10 into the setting trick.

What looks best to me is lead a low club from hand at trick two. When West wins and shifts to a spade, you take the ace and discard a spade on the diamond king, then persist in leading clubs. You cannot be prevented from ruffing the fourth club high in dummy, one way or another since East, the man with three trump, has no entry to lead the third round of hearts.

Playing a spade to the ace at trick two in order to grab the discard, then working on clubs, will also work. However, you expose yourself to slightly more jeopardy of a trump promotion if you do this.

North has enough to drive to game when South opens the bidding. He cannot afford to raise spades immediately, since that would not be forcing, so he bids his clubs first. When South rebids his spades, North can simply bid four spades, assuming that his decent trump intermediates will solidify the spade suit.

After West leads the heart jack to trick one, South covers, and wins the next heart in dummy. He should now see that he needs a successful club finesse to make his game. He must therefore plan on the assumption that the club finesse will work. If it loses, he may go down two tricks instead of only one, but the additional undertrick is a fine investment to improve his chances of making game.

If South draws trump, even assuming that they break, and takes a club finesse, he will then have to find a way of getting back to his hand for a second finesse. How can he get back? He cannot do so unless the diamond finesse succeeds; and why risk this unnecessarily?

The solution is to use the trump more efficiently as a means of communication. Declarer leads the trump 10 to the ace at trick three, then abandons trump in order to take a club finesse. He next leads the trump nine to the king and observes West’s discard. He takes a second club finesse, and only then can he draw the last trump by means of the finesse against the jack. This leaves him in position for the third and final club finesse.

Today’s deal is a mea culpa from a reader whose name will be withheld. At least, as he said, he made an interesting mistake.

Declarer was given a helpful start when West led a spade rather than the more challenging diamond. He won with the queen in hand, ducked a heart to East’s 10, won the next spade with the ace in hand, and played another heart. West tranced before playing the jack and declarer won the king and continued the attack on hearts. When the defense cleared spades, declarer did not guess clubs and could no longer make the game.

South realized, too late, that had he taken the club finesse when the heart king held, he would actually have made his game.

First, suppose that West cashes his hearts: now South has three spades, two hearts, three clubs and a diamond. Alternatively, suppose West does not cash either heart winner, but exits immediately with a spade. Declarer wins in dummy and play ace and another diamond, since the diamond king must be with East. The defenders can cash a spade, their fourth defensive trick, but South has three spades, one heart, two diamonds and three clubs.

So perhaps West should cash just one heart after scoring his club king. But now if he plays a spade, declarer gives up a heart while he still has an entry to dummy. If West switches to a diamond instead, now South simply plays low from dummy for the ninth trick, because the defenders have not yet set up East’s long spade.

Had North or South been able to reach three no-trump without bidding a major, they would probably have received a favorable lead. But today West was warned off the spade lead, so selected the club jack for his opening salvo. What would you expect the fate of the game to be?

The club lead was won in dummy with the queen, as East followed with the seven, and the spade seven led to the 10 and ace. Declarer then took the losing diamond finesse. The low club return was won in dummy and a diamond played to the 10. When West ducked this, declarer seemed to be very short of tricks. But he cashed the club king and now stripped off West’s heart by leading out the ace, then played a third diamond. West had no choice but to win. Although he could cash his club winner, he then had to lead a spade, giving declarer both a cheap spade trick and also an entry to dummy’s stranded diamond king.

The key to the defense was East’s signal at trick one. When East followed with the club seven he was giving count in a position where it was clear what his attitude was (since he could not beat the queen). So West should have unblocked both the club nine and 10 on the second and third rounds of the suit, leaving himself an entry to his partner’s hand if declarer tried to endplay him.

As a defender, consider giving count (or even occasionally suit preference) if your attitude is already defined by bridge logic.

The four most regular players at the Dyspeptics Club most frequently play in set partnerships, both North and East putting up with their weaker partners simply to have someone they can shout at without fear of violent physical response. And North swears he will never give up his partner, because, as he says, he holds such poor cards himself that it is a joy to play with a man who regards a strong no-trump as less than his full entitlement of high card points.

In today’s deal South declared four spades on the lead of the club 10. Thinking that it would not matter whether he lost a club now or later, he played low from dummy. East won with the king and, since it was clear that his partner held very little, farsightedly attacked diamonds, playing West for the 10 by boldly leading into dummy’s tenace. Since he was due to regain the lead twice more with his top hearts, he was able to establish the setting trick in diamonds for the defense.

Declarer gains a tempo if he wins the opening lead with the ace. It looks now as though he can draw trump and establishing dummy’s hearts for two diamond discards — but there is a second pitfall. East may let the heart queen win, take the second heart and exit with king and another club. Now declarer is left with two diamond losers.

The correct sequence of play is to win the club ace, play the spade ace and jack, then start on hearts. Now the defense is powerless.

In today’s deal declarer did well to get an inferential count on today’s hand, but failed to draw the correct conclusions from his hypothesis.

Against four spades West cashed three rounds of diamonds, East discarding an encouraging heart 10 on the third. West shifted to the heart two, and declarer won the ace and drew trump in two rounds. Then he tried to work out the distribution of the defensive hands.

He could count West for five diamonds and all the honors in that suit. West had supported East’s hearts at his second turn to bid, so was likely to have four of them; for with only three, he might well have made a support double or have passed one spade.

All of this added up to his holding nine cards in the red suits, plus a doubleton spade, which left room for just two clubs. This meant that East must hold four clubs.

And if East held four, South’s conclusion was that the queen was likely to sit with the length, regardless of West’s opening bid strength.

Accordingly he led a club to the jack, and finished two down. What South had failed to appreciate was that he needed four club tricks in order to discard a heart. That would not be possible whatever four clubs East had, if they included the queen, without a serious defensive error.

The correct thought process is that to obtain four club tricks declarer must rely on the club queen lying doubleton in West, and cash the ace then lead low to the king.

The North hand is hard to evaluate in response to a one spade opener. However, a limit raise feels the most sensible description to me; North does not have enough to commit to game with such a balanced hand.

When West leads the diamond jack against four spades declarer puts up dummy’s queen more in hope than expectation, and captures East’s king win with the ace.

Now South is threatened with the loss of two spades, a club, and a diamond. Nothing can be done about the losers in the black suits, but South can prevent the loss of a diamond if he is careful.

Declarer must immediately run the hearts, discarding diamonds from dummy, hoping for the suit to break 4-3. Even though one opponent will surely be able to ruff the fourth round of the suit, this is unlikely to give the defenders a trick that they weren’t going to get anyway.

The defenders have only three trumps between them. If the ruff is made with the trump king or ace, this will immediately eliminate one trump loser. If the ruff is made with the only missing small trump, South may then be able to lead a trump and get both the ace and king to fall together. As the cards lie today, whether West ruffs high or low, or discards, one of the defenders’ sure tricks vanishes.

If declarer had led a trump at the second trick, East would take the spade ace, and now the defenders would get their diamond and club tricks to defeat the contract.

This was the very last deal of the NEC tournament last year, and it decided the event, since at that point in the match the Hackett team were leading a Dutch/ UK combination by just five IMPs (thus one swing could change the match result).

In one room Louk Verhees for the trailing team had opened five diamonds as East, and bought the contract there. This was never going to make, but after a spade lead and club shift declarer was home free with 10 tricks.

So the fate of David Gold’s four heart contract would determine first place and all the glory that this entailed. If it made, the Hackett team would be overtaken at the finishing line.

Brian Senior led a club, Gold called for the jack, and Jason Hackett won the ace, then paused for reflection. It looks natural to play his partner’s suit, spades. But had he shifted to a spade, assuming that his diamond tricks could wait, declarer would simply have drawn trump and used the club king to pitch one diamond loser from his hand, and made his game. Hackett worked that out. He cashed the diamond ace then thoughtfully played the diamond two, giving his partner a ruff with a suit preference card to make sure that his partner didn’t play a spade at the fourth trick, and surrender the setting trick in the process.

Not to worry: the trump ace was not going to go away. The contract went down one, and the Hackett team had held on to win.