In three no-trump on a heart lead, South’s first plan is to develop the spades to make his game. If he can set up three spade winners, he will then need only one more trick; and he may then try to get that trick in clubs.

The first step is to win the first heart trick in dummy in order to play on spades. When West wins his ace, and returns a heart, declarer can see that two additional tricks will be needed, and the clubs don’t rate to do the trick. Hence South must try to develop two diamond tricks.

South should try to make West win the first diamond, to knock out the danger hand’s entry before the hearts are established. If East wins the first diamond, he will establish the hearts; and West will eventually get in with his top diamond to run the hearts.

South must tackle diamonds by leading a low diamond from dummy, since East should be given the chance to err by ducking. If East slips up, West will be forced to duck the first diamond or his hand will be dead, and South will make the contract without further difficulty. Having stolen a diamond trick, declarer can succeed by changing tack again, by playing on clubs. He emerges with two spades, a diamond, and three tricks in each of the other suits.

Had South led the first diamond from his own hand, West would let East win the first diamond. Now the defense would clear the hearts while West retains his entry.

South could not see what could go wrong in three no-trump. He counted four diamond tricks, two aces, and three spades, once the ace was knocked out. When South played low from dummy at trick one, he soon found out. East won the lead and returned the suit, and West could win the spade ace then cash out the clubs for down one.

We may all be familiar with the position where dummy holds ace-doubleton opposite 10-fourth, when a small card of this suit is led through dummy. The danger is that if the suit breaks 5-2 and the long hand holds an entry; the correct play is to rise with the ace in order to block the run of the suit. The point is that East is almost certain to have one of the top three honors, otherwise West would have led the king. If the suit breaks 4-3 there is no danger, and if is 6-1, when East obtains the lead he will have no card to return.

But today’s situation is analogous: East is really quite likely to hold two out of the K-Q-J-10, since with for example K-J-10-8-x, West’s recommended lead would be the jack (though a small card might be right, I admit).

So by rising with the ace, once again you are heavy favorite to be able to block the suit. You can now knock out the spade ace safely, regardless of which defender holds it. Unless the club suit breaks 4-3, East will have a doubleton double honor and the suit will be blocked.

This deal from a team match, offers a mixture of discovery and technique. West led a low spade against three no-trump, ensuring a trick there for declarer. How should South play? First, he should count the opponents’ high-card points: they have only 14, and West must hold most of them. East can hold a queen, but not much more. By playing the spade jack at trick one, declarer learns whether East holds the spade queen or not.

If East covers with the queen, declarer can safely finesse West for the ace-queen of diamonds, making one spade, three hearts, two diamonds, and three clubs. Declarer need not rely on hearts coming in for four tricks.

If the spade jack holds, declarer should cash three high hearts. Now, should the jack come down, declarer uses the club king as an entry to lead a diamond to the king. If West has J-x-x-x of hearts, declarer cashes three clubs ending in his hand, and leads a diamond to the king, then plays another diamond. If West has the ace-queen of diamonds, he will be endplayed into giving declarer another spade or diamond trick (declarer may appear to be squeezed on the fourth heart, but he will survive by focusing on West’s discards on the clubs). This play picks up the singleton diamond queen with East.

The danger with playing low from dummy at trick one is that if East produces the 10, declarer will not know which line to pursue, and he cannot safely test hearts before deciding how to play diamonds.

Today’s deal saw a tricky player present an opponent with a losing option. Put yourself in the West seat and cover up the East and South cards, to see if you are the pheasant or the pheasant-plucker.

At the table, West led the heart three against three no-trump. East won the trick with the king as declarer played the six. East returned the heart seven, on which declarer contributed the queen. West won the trick with his heart ace (do you agree?). And what should the defenders do now?

Did you lead out the heart 10, assuming that the defenders could run the hearts on defense? That is certainly the logical interpretation; but before you try to cash out the hearts, remember which hearts are missing. The answer is that the four, five and nine have not put in an appearance. Since your partner would return the lowest from a remaining holding of three cards, (or even perhaps from four, to avoid accidentally persuading you he had just two left) his remaining holding when he led back the seven had to be the doubleton 7-4 or 7-5, the former perhaps being more likely given declarer’s play to trick one.

It must be safe to exit with the spade jack (declarer can hardly cash nine tricks from the minors unless partner has the spade ace). On winning with the king, declarer can do no better than run the club jack to East’s king. When East shifts back to the heart four, the defense runs three more heart tricks to set the game.

In today’s deal South could not stand to sell out over the intervention to his partner’s two club opener. When he heard his partner raise four spades to five, this asked for a club control, and with a club void South felt he had to accept the invitation.

When West led the heart queen, declarer counted 11 top tricks. If trumps were 2-1, the 12th trick could come most easily by ruffing a heart in dummy. However, if trumps were 3-0, the route to the slam-going trick would be through establishing dummy’s diamonds.

Once West turned up with three trumps, the risk of an overruff on the third round of diamonds, should West have only a doubleton, was a real one. But declarer could see nothing better. When he played the diamond ace-king and ruffed a diamond, West was able to overruff, leaving declarer with a heart loser. At the table South was justifiably able to bemoan his bad luck.

However, there was an elegant solution South had overlooked. Win the first heart in hand with the king and a play a trump to the queen. When East shows out, declarer leads the club queen from table and discards a diamond on East’s king.

After a diamond return, dummy can win and South can ruff a diamond low in hand, draw trump with the ace and king and a further diamond is ruffed in hand. Finally, the heart ace is the entry to the board to run the remaining diamonds. Declarer ends up taking seven trump tricks, two hearts and three diamonds.

Perhaps it’s my advancing years that make me more conservative, but I am not the greatest fan of weak jump overcalls and responses. I am prepared to accept that at certain vulnerabilities weak jump overcalls make sense, though when vulnerable I prefer to play intermediate jumps. And in an uncontested auction when my partner opens, I like the strong-jump response at the two level, since this gets an awkward hand off my chest in one go.

That said, when the opponents intervene over an opening bid, whether with a double or a bid, there is a place for a weak-jump response. In today’s deal South was playing that a jump to two spades looked something like a minimum weak-two opener, typically with points in the suit. Now North took only a mildly aggressive action when he drove to game.

The defenders attacked hearts, and South was jolted out of his complacency when East took the first trick with the heart ace and shifted to a diamond at the second trick. The danger was obvious: East might win the spade ace and underlead in hearts to his partner, for the diamond ruff that would set the game.

Rather than sit back passively to see if the defenders could find this play, South took the first diamond and played the club ace, king (pitching a heart) and jack of clubs. When East covered with the queen, South simply pitched his third heart. With the defenders’ communications cut, East was helpless to prevent declarer losing just the spade ace from here on in.

In today’s deal South’s two heart bid set up a one-round force but was not game-forcing. North had a relatively minimum balanced hand, but he was top of his range, even if his spade queen didn’t appear to be pulling its full weight. When he jumped to game, South decided that he would risk being off two club tricks, and rather than give information to the opponents, he simply jumped to slam.

When West’s low spade lead went to the queen, king and ace, South could see that his slam was no worse than taking two club finesses. However, he determined that the auction had significantly reduced the chances of this line succeeding. Accordingly, he decided to increase his chances by means of an endplay.

He unblocked the diamond ace, overtook the heart queen with the king, and cashed the two top diamonds, pitching spades, then ruffed a diamond to hand with the trump ace. Next he overtook the heart eight with the nine, ruffed dummy’s spade loser, and had reduced to a five-card ending with four clubs and a trump in hand, while dummy had three clubs and two trump. Even though West still had a trump left, declarer could lead a club to the 10 to leave East on play, and take the rest.

East could return a club, surrendering his side’s second trick in that suit, or if he preferred. he could switch to a spade. South would ruff that, pitching dummy’s losing club. He would then cross to dummy with the club ace to draw the last trump.

In today’s deal, North’s jump to five spades focused on the presence or absence of a diamond control. In moving on, South did well to select spades rather than hearts as trumps, because of his excellent trump intermediates. And that proved to be critical today, since the 4-1 heart break would have sunk the heart slam – and it certainly did not make the spade slam any easier to play.

After the top club lead from West, declarer won the ace, and carefully played only two rounds of trump, using one high honor from each hand. Had spades not split, declarer would have drawn all the trump and relied on hearts breaking. When spades broke, declarer could see that he had a slight extra chance, if West was short in both spades and hearts. He cashed the heart ace and queen, prepared to revert to trump if everyone followed. When West discarded on the second heart, declarer cashed the king and ruffed a heart to hand, then went back to dummy in trumps. He could discard his club loser on the fifth heart, then come back to hand with the diamond ace. Now he could lead up to the diamond queen successfully, for his 12th trick.

This approach, of leaving a trump outstanding while playing on the side-suit to test if it is going to break, is a very useful weapon to add to your arsenal. Particularly when one opponent has overcalled or preempted, the likelihood that he will be relatively short in the two key suits rises significantly.

A fine place for instructive and free bridge material is Larry Cohen’s newsletter. Today’s hand from that source discusses splinter bids.

When you open one spade and hear a four club response, it is forcing to game, promising decent values, with spade-fit and club shortness. Now you can cuebid, or take a chance on finding a heart control opposite by using Blackwood. The four diamond and four heart bids show controls and let you use Blackwood with more confidence, to reach slam. Now all you have to do is make it.

When West leads the heart king against six spades, your preliminary diagnosis should be that there is a fast club loser and a slow heart loser. To succeed in your slam you must set up the diamonds to create a home for your heart loser in hand.

A trump to the ace reveals the 2-0 trump break. Now careful counting is required. A 5-1 diamond break will sink you unless the queen drops. But you can cope with a 4-2 diamond break – if you are careful.

Cash the diamond ace next and follow with a diamond to the king. Ruff a diamond high in hand, and only now do you draw a second round of trump. Lead to dummy’s jack, trump another diamond, and go back to dummy in spades to cash the last diamond and discard your heart.

You can now surrender a club, but crossruff the last two tricks. Had you drawn trump prematurely, you would have run out of spade winners. Try it if you don’t believe me!