Today’s theme emphasizes the fact that it is essential for the defenders to try to count declarer’s hand. East failed to do the necessary work, and paid the penalty.

West led the heart three against four spades and East won. Although he might have underled in hearts on the second round, this seemed an unnecessary gamble, so he continued the suit from the top.

Declarer ruffed the third heart and drew trump in two rounds with the queen and ace. He continued by running the club nine to East’s jack. A heart lead would now concede a ruff and discard and a club appeared suicidal, being straight into dummy’s ace-queen. So East decided to lead a low diamond.

There was the chance that West might hold the queen or that South might misguess or that declarer would still be left with a club loser. However, declarer went up with the queen and when this held, could now claim his contract on a cross-ruff.

What did East see, all too late, that prompted subsequent selfflagellation? That the apparently foolish club return was in fact safe! South was known to have started with five spades and two hearts – hence he held six cards in the minor suits. However they were distributed, he would not be able to get enough discards on dummy’s clubs and East would be bound to come to his diamond king at the end.

Admittedly had East underled in hearts at trick two the defenders could have defeated the hand more easily, but this would have been fatal on a different day.

Sometimes the most straightforward of deals becomes complex when a suit splits unexpectedly badly. In today’s example you would expect to be able to claim 13 tricks, barring a very hostile break in hearts. But even then you may be able to recover, so long as you plan efficiently, and take note of your opponent’s discards.

Against seven no-trump West leads the club jack, dummy and East playing low. Declarer wins in hand with the ace and counts 12 top tricks. He cashes the heart ace, getting the bad news that the hearts will not run. So he continues with the spade ace and queen, then the three top diamonds, ending in dummy. No luck there either, but had East been long in both suits, running all the black-suit winners ending in dummy would have squeezed him.

As it is, South next plays the spade king, discarding a low heart from hand, reducing everyone to five cards. As East has to keep four hearts, he can only keep one club. When declarer cashes the remaining top hearts, West has to throw either his diamond jack, establishing dummy’s seven, or a club. In the latter case dummy discards the diamond seven and the club king is cashed to establish the eight as declarer’s 13th trick.

For those of you who like to categorize the position this is a double squeeze, and since the opponents were squeezed on different tricks, it is technically a nonsimultaneous double squeeze. Easier to name than to play!

Today’s deal is something of a curiosity. Suppose West takes the club king and ace against four spades, and shifts to the heart jack. Declarer has nine winners, but the blockage in diamonds is extremely inconvenient, and the sight of East’s heart queen argues that hearts will not be breaking for him.

For the time being, South does not have to commit himself. He wins the heart ace, takes his three top spades and then unblocks the diamond ace. Now he plays the heart king. If East ruffs, he has to lead a diamond round to dummy’s winners, so he must discard a diamond. But South has a counter. He leads the spade three, forcing East to win and give dummy the diamond tricks on which declarer’s losing hearts go away. Declarer makes five trumps, two hearts and three diamonds.

It does not help West to play a third top club at trick three – so long as South follows the same general approach.

However, while even a single top club lead allows declarer to come home, there is a defense. An initial heart lead defeats four spades, as it enables the defenders to prevent the club link between the East-West hands being prematurely severed in time. If declarer plays a club before drawing trump, the defense gets two heart ruffs. If he draws three rounds of trump, then plays a club, West gives his partner a heart ruff and East gets out with a club. And if South draws all the trump, West makes two heart tricks on power alone.

Today’s deal is from a reader of mine, Jacques Guerin. It was played 57 years ago, but it has matured nicely in the interim.

At duplicate pairs you play four hearts on a top spade lead, and duck, winning the continuation of the spade jack in hand. East’s echo in spades suggests an original 5-2 distribution in that suit. The first question is how many rounds of trump to draw before playing diamonds. Two seems right to me.

However, at the table most Souths drew all the trump, and played on diamonds. The trap of the hand is to lead to the king or queen; if you do, East will duck. On the actual lie of the cards, the hand can be made by simply continuing any diamond from dummy – but this would look foolish if West could win the jack and cash out his spade winner.

Many declarers led to a top diamond, ducked, then came back to the club ace to lead another diamond toward dummy. Curtains! East won the trick and knocked out the club king, killing the diamonds. Down one.

Guerin drew all the trump and played a diamond to the 10. From the play, it seemed that with West holding five decent spades but not having overcalled, the diamond ace was surely with East. Since South wanted to prevent West from getting on lead in diamonds, it looked right to force East to win the first diamond. Guerin could win the club return in hand and knock out the diamond ace, eventually discarding a spade on a good diamond.

Today’s deal comes to me in the form of an ethical question. What should you do if you believe partner has forgotten the system?

Declarer, a top professional was using a complex system of transfers after the one no-trump response, but was aware that her partner did not know it as well as she would have liked. The deal came up in a club duplicate, with North’s two spade call a transfer to clubs!

South correctly alerted it, but was fairly sure that her partner had forgotten. She felt her hand was so suitable for a club slam that she could not ethically try to get back to spades – even though they were playing matchpoints. After she raised clubs, she landed in what she fully expected to be an unappetizing spot.

When West led the diamond ace and switched to a heart, South won the ace, ruffed a diamond and ran the heart queen. When it held, she played a club to the 10, a club to the ace and took another ruffing heart finesse. West covered, so declarer ruffed, trumped a diamond, and all West could make was his trump trick.

South opened the travelling score slip with little confidence, but to her surprise the rest of the field were making just nine tricks in spade games or partscores. The hand doesn’t play so well in spades by North. After a club lead and continuation, the defenders will surely come to four tricks whatever declarer tries. A trump lead will also leave declarer with an impossible task.

When this deal came up at a European Junior championships, Evgeni Rudakov of the Russian Junior team was apparently the only declarer who played today’s three no-trump contract correctly when confronted with the problem.

Rudakov declared three notrump as South on the lead of the two of hearts. He correctly took the ace immediately for fear of a diamond switch. Now how should you tackle the club suit?

One possible approach is to run the club eight. This works if West has a small singleton club, but loses to both a singleton jack or 10. Rudakov tried a different approach when he led the club eight from dummy, and when East followed small unconcernedly, he put up the queen.

Several other declarers did something similar, but on seeing the fall of the 10, they simply cashed the club ace next and could not recover. However, there is a way to ensure five club winners, and that is the number required to guarantee the contract.

Rudakov played the spade four to dummy’s queen at trick three, then led the remaining club from dummy. When East correctly played low, declarer overtook with the nine. Now two more rounds of the suit gave him nine tricks – five clubs, two spades and two red aces. Had the club nine lost to the 10, it would have meant that the suit had broken evenly, of course, and he would still have had nine tricks.

Note that if declarer takes the king and ace of spades before playing on clubs, he cuts himself off from the long clubs.

Today’s deal from a Polish teams tournament saw South miss his chance to draw the correct inference from the auction. He might have put himself in line for a brilliancy prize, but had to content himself with the consolation prize of nursing a beer in the bar while uttering the Polish equivalent of “I could have been a contender.”

When East opened two spades, which in his methods guaranteed precisely five spades and four or more cards in one of the minors, South had no convenient way to describe his assets. He opted for an agricultural leap to five diamonds, and the defenders led a spade and shifted to hearts.

Declarer won in hand, and was all set to claim 12 tricks. He cashed one top diamond and was hugely taken aback when it was West who discarded. The best he could do now was tempt East by advancing the diamond jack. When East rejected the Greek gift, declarer had no option but to run his trump, and concede two heart tricks in the ending, when the defenders made no mistake.

Can you see somewhat abstruse play that declarer might have found? He must unblock a spade honor at trick one. This gives up on the overtrick in most cases, but here it is essential. You win the heart shift, and cash one top trump. When the bad break comes to light, cash the remaining top spade then duck a spade to East, who cannot afford to duck dummy’s seven, and must now lead a trump, spade or club, all of which are fatal.

When the defenders lead a low spade against three no-trump, you must put up the jack. It will do you no good to play low from dummy and force an honor, since dummy’s remaining spade honor is bare. With three spades in dummy instead of two, the percentage action at trick one would be to play low, hoping West had led from honor-10 fourth or fifth of spades.

When the spade jack is covered, you duck and win the next spade, West playing the spade two to indicate an initial five-card suit. Now how do you combine the club and heart chances?

With the heart nine in hand instead of the seven, you would cash the heart ace then the club aceking. If the club queen had not fallen, you would lead the heart 10, intending to run it. (It is marginally better to take the top clubs as opposed to the top hearts, since the chance of a doubleton club queen exceeds that of a doubleton heart queen). However, you cannot follow this line here, since you might still go down if the heart queen was onside but the suit did not break 3-3.

Your best way to augment your chance of the club finesse is to take the club ace, then the heart ace, unblocking dummy’s eight, and the heart king unblocking dummy’s 10 when West follows with the heart queen. You can then cash the diamond aceking and finesse the heart seven, to make nine tricks. If the hearts did not behave, you would run the club nine, of course.

Today’s deal came up in a duplicate pair game. East decided that his balanced hand with weak trump and soft cards on the side meant that he was far better suited for a simple spade raise rather than a preemptive raise. The only alternative to the preemptive raise would have been a mixed raise – and that requires a little extra side-suit shape — and maybe the spade queen instead of the two.

East was correct that his side should be defending not declaring, but he undid all his good work immediately. When South declared four hearts on a top diamond lead, the 10 going to the queen, king and ace, he played off his two top trumps, then took three rounds of clubs, ruffing the third in hand. He next crossed to the diamond jack, and pitched a loser on the fourth club as East ruffed in. There were still two black-suit losers to come, but the contract was secure.

Can you see where the defensive mistake came? At trick one, East’s decision to cover the diamond queen was an error. Had he ducked the diamond, there would have been no delayed entry to dummy in a side-suit. Now no matter what declarer does, he cannot reach the established clubs, and he will be left with three plain losers and a trump loser.

For the record, on a different day, if West did not have the diamond eight, and East had the spade entry, covering the first diamond might be the only way to avoid a later endplay. But not today.