Against your contract of four hearts, West leads the club king and receives a count signal of the three, suggesting an odd number. Now he switches to the diamond five. How do you envisage the play going?

At the table declarer was frightened of a ruff, so rose with the diamond ace, and tried to draw trump. But when the 3-1 break came to light he had to go one down, losing a trick in each suit. The point is that the defenders now had two chances to work out which black-suit winner would be standing up.

South should have worked out that if West was allowed to obtain his ruff he would be able to claim 10 tricks. That would be so unless West started life with two red singletons, which is surely against the odds. So it is best to finesse at trick two hoping either that East will give his partner the ruff or else that he does not find the spade switch.

So now the question is whether East should get the defense right. After winning the diamond king, the shift to a spade is right either if East-West have to try to cash two spades, (in which case declarer could surely always guess the spade suit) or if the actual lie of the cards exists – which is certainly a relatively unlikely position to have to cater for. So I suspect most defenders would get this wrong, one way or another.

Once in a while you encounter a deal where, after the opening lead is made, you can place every relevant card. West leads the club three against three notrump; give it a moment’s thought to plan the defense. Can you work out South’s shape and which high cards he holds?

With the club two on view, West’s lead of the three must be from a four-card suit. So South also holds four clubs. Seeing the club ace, queen, jack and 10 on view marks West with the king, since with a suit not headed by an honor, West would have led his second highest club.

Since South opened one diamond, he has at least four cards there, and if South had fewer than four hearts, he would not have rebid in that suit. Of course if South does hold five hearts, surely that would have been his opening bid. All of this means South has exactly four cards in each of hearts, diamonds and clubs, and therefore at most one spade.

If South has decent reversing values with a singleton spade, and West has the club king, South holds a bare spade honor in a 1-4-4-4 pattern with about 17 points.

Therefore, on taking the club ace, the right switch is to the spade king. When the king scoops the queen, West should appreciate the position and unblock his eight. Then, when on lead with his club king, the spade jack and a spade through dummy’s nine leads to two down.

On today’s deal from the semi-finals of a knock-out tournament both tables reached the same contract, on very similar auctions. Both Wests had an easy lead, and the play developed in very similar fashion at each table, but one declarer came home and one failed.

Put yourself in West’s seat. Having shown hearts and clubs, but having received no response from your partner, you lead the club king against four spades, as East followed with the four. Declarer wins with the ace, and plays a low spade. Plan the defense.

In one room South covered West’s spade two with dummy’s seven. East won cheaply and shifted to a low heart. Declarer ruffed, cashed the spade ace, and ran the diamonds, discarding clubs from hand. East could ruff in whenever he wanted to, but declarer had 10 tricks sooner or later.

In the other room West took the opportunity to count declarer’s tricks. If declarer had five spades West could count his 10 winners, so West assumed he had only a four-card suit. The early play had suggested partner has a singleton club, and if declarer could duck a trump to East, the defense would be over.

To foil South’s plan, West put in the spade king, and now whatever declarer did, nine tricks was the limit. If he ducked, West would cash the clubs, while if declarer won and played a second trump East would win and cash a third trump, leaving South with just nine tricks.

When Englishman Jack Mizel chose to play in the European Open Teams in San Remo with Brian Senior, he knew he was playing with an expert. And when you’re playing with an expert it is always tempting to expect him to justify your optimistic bidding.

At one table Mizel’s teammates had sacrificed in four hearts doubled and had conceded 800, which looked likely to be a small loss. However, the English North/South had a more exciting auction to reach slam, as shown below. And yes, Mizel as North was displaying rather more confidence in partner than the situation warranted.

The slam looks to have an inescapable loser in each black suit, as declarer can only discard three of dummy’s clubs on his diamonds. But look at what happened. West led the heart king, ruffed by declarer, who played a spade to the ace, ruffed dummy’s last heart, then cashed the spade king and then started running his diamonds.

In the four-card ending when declarer played his last diamond West had three unpalatable choices. He could trump, and be endplayed to give a ruff-sluff or open up clubs, or he could discard a heart and be thrown in with the spade jack to broach clubs. Finally, his actual choice was to test declarer by coming down to a singleton club. However, Senior had not come this far to go wrong in the ending. Since he had a complete count of the hand, he cashed the club ace, dropping West’s king and made his slam.

At the Dyspeptics Club, the post mortems are often more fun than watching the bridge. As a spectator remarked, what North’s comments lack in accuracy, they more than make up for in vitriol.

Against three no-trump West led the diamond queen and East scored his diamond ace, and returned the suit. Declarer won, tested hearts, then took the club finesse for his ninth trick. West won his king and cashed out for down one.

When South complained that every card was wrong, North snarled that it was his bad luck that every one of his partners was wrong-headed. That was true up to a point, but he then went on to say that the contract could always be made. He was only partly right.

When South wins the diamond king, he must strip West of his major suit cards, ending in dummy. Next he leads a diamond, and West can cash his diamonds but then has to lead into declarer’s club tenace. Equally, if East returns a club at trick two, declarer plays low and West wins the jack and exits with a diamond. The six major-suit winners reduce everyone to four cards, and so West cannot keep three winning diamonds and the club king.

There is a winning defense, but it is not one to be found at the table. East must play low at trick one, and now the defenders are a step ahead. West has two entries in clubs and that gives him an escape from the endplays.

One of the hidden sequences to which experts attach a meaning different from the casual player, is the jump overcall. The majority of experts temper discretion with valor, and especially when vulnerable may play a jump overcall to be closer to intermediate than weak. And almost without exception, experts play jump overcalls in the balancing or protective seat as intermediate, not weak. With a bad hand they pass, with a moderate hand they make a simple overcall.

In today’s deal South followed a simple route with his hand in the balancing seat. North had just enough to raise to game, and when dummy came down South saw that the hands fitted very well, and game would be straightforward if he could avoid a trump loser. It was worth making the effort to protect against a 4-1 trump break, so that was what South directed his energies to.

The defenders led the spade king, then shifted to the club queen. South won and played a second spade to West, and back came the club 10 to the king. Declarer played a heart to the king, then took a spade ruff, just in case. Now the heart ace disclosed the bad break, but South took the diamond king, and led a diamond to the ace. A second club ruff then reduced South to two trumps. In the three-card ending he exited with a diamond and claimed the last two tricks, since whichever defender took the trick would have to lead round to his trump tenace.

The most difficult hands to lead from are those where the opponents have a blind auction to a no-trump contract, leaving you three or four possible suits to choose from. Without an attractive or safe sequence, I’ll attack from a five-card suit, and often look to go passive rather than lead from four to an honor, especially four to an ace. Where faced with an equal choice of a major or a minor, you might prefer to lead a major if the opponents have not explored for a major-suit fit.

In today’s deal both Souths elected to open one no-trump, treating their hand as balanced rather than making a light reverse into hearts. Whether you agree or not (I’m not sure I do) in one room against three no-trump West was a believer in leading majors against no-trump. South won in hand and cashed his nine red winners, to make ten tricks. In the other room West led the club six, taken by East with the ace. When declarer followed with the club king, the layout of the suit was known. East cashed the club queen and West dropped the jack, then followed with the nine under the 10 strongly suggesting a spade shift. East now played the spade seven through, covered with the jack and queen. West won and put East back on play by leading the club two to the four for a second spade through. The defense took five clubs and four spades – a six trick difference from the other room!

In today’s deal you have to defend against a slam. It is sometimes easier to play against opponents you trust, as opposed to those whose bidding or play might be more eccentric.

The auction has been natural enough, the five diamond response to the straight Blackwood ace-asking bid shows one of the four aces. First you must consider your opening lead. With a likely trump trick, the singleton lead is both dangerous and pointless. You are much more likely to cost your side a diamond trick than to get a ruff, so you lead the heart king. This produces the heart ace, the three from partner, and the nine from declarer. Declarer now runs the spade queen, (partner producing the two and declarer the four). You decide to win the trick, and the ball is now in your court.

There is a real danger that partner’s club ace or your heart winner (if you have one) might vanish on dummy’s diamonds, unless you cash it right now. A diamond loser will never go away. So the question is whether declarer is off an ace, or whether he has a slow heart loser. The only clue that you have is that declarer’s jump to six spades over the Blackwood response without checking for kings might suggest he is missing an ace. Additionally, partner’s small heart at the first trick shows an odd number. Against a slam or five-level contract one should signal count on the lead of a king. Could declarer really have three small hearts and have enough to use Blackwood?

I say no, a small additional clue perhaps being that partner’s spade two at his first opportunity is suit-preference for clubs (if he has more than one trump!). All of those three things point in the same direction, of trying to cash a club. Note partner’s play of the heart three at trick one. All you asked for was the count, and despite his beefy hearts, he followed orders.