The Dyspeptics Club membership changes as time passes, but one thing that never alters is South’s capacity to pick up strong hands. Indeed when a member had been away for six months he said that he didn’t feel properly home until he walked through the door and heard South pick up his cards and heard him open two no-trumps.

In today’s deal South barreled his way to the best game, when North found a temporizing call at his second turn and thereby uncovered the spade fit. Against four spades the diamond jack was led to the ace. Declarer cashed the two top trumps, and when he found the bad news started running the clubs, discarding hearts from dummy. East carefully pitched a diamond on the third club, but ruffed the fourth and drew another round of trumps, and declarer had just nine tricks.

As North pointed out, East had indeed defended well by delaying ruffing in, but South should not have given the defenders the chance to make a nice play.

A far better approach would have been to take just one top spade, then to lead a heart to the queen. East can win and play a second diamond. But declarer ruffs, cashes the spade king then plays a club to the queen, ruffs another diamond and now runs the clubs.

Dummy can discard its last diamond on the third club, and regardless of when East ruffs in, declarer will take 10 tricks.

Knowing your opponents’ leading methods is often critical to finding the best line as declarer.

In today’s deal West leads the diamond seven against three no-trump, and as South you duck East’s diamond king and capture his six with your ace as West plays the eight. You have to find the best route to nine tricks.

Since your opponents play fourth-highest leads, the combination of West’s lead of the seven, plus East’s leading back the six, strongly suggests that West has five or more diamonds and has deviously concealed his small diamond. So if you knock out the spade ace the defenders will be in position to cash out the diamonds for down one. In other words, playing spades seems like a bad idea.

A different approach would be to find the club queen with West, as well as East holding both the heart king and jack. Not a good chance — in that you need three cards well placed for you, but it is not an entirely hopeless prospect. Yes you might expect the club queen to be to your right, but you do not have enough entries to dummy to take all the finesses you want against East.

So you play a club to the jack, and when it holds, next comes the crucial play of a heart to the 10. A second club finesse brings good news in that suit. Then, after a heart to the queen, all that remains is to claim nine tricks.

One of the plays that separates the expert from the intermediate player, is that while both of them take finesses when they must, somehow the expert’s finesses ether work more often – or good things happen when the finesse loses. Let’s see a deal that reflects that theme.

Consider the play in six spades in today’s deal, where East-West have competed in diamonds and West leads the diamond king. How would you set about catering for unfortunate lies of the cards?

After ruffing the first trick, declarer must draw trump in two rounds to avoid nasty accidents. At this point the stage is set for an elimination play, which requires two entries to dummy to ruff away the remaining diamonds from the North hand, to remove the defenders’ safe exit cards.

South starts with the club ace then queen. This brings the good news that the suit divides 3-2, and now declarer leads the club jack to dummy’s queen and ruffs a diamond. Dummy is reentered with the club nine and the diamond suit is finally eliminated with another ruff. Declarer now passes the heart 10 to East, who finds himself endplayed into leading a heart back into dummy’s tenace or conceding a ruff-and-discard. Either choice gives declarer 12 tricks.

Obviously, a heart at trick one breaks up this endplay. But note that if you do not make the effort to strip off the diamonds, East wins the first heart cheaply, exits in diamonds, and sits back to wait for his second heart winner.

One of the recurring themes in my articles is that the opposition bidding frequently leads declarer to the winning line. This was true today, but only in theory, not practice.

Against three no-trumps West led a low spade to the 10 and queen, and now with six top tricks, declarer hoped that a 3-3 heart break, might provide the other tricks he needed. If not, the clubs were favorite to come in for no loser.

A heart to the jack lost to the ace and back came a spade, removing declarer’s last stopper in that suit. When hearts proved to be 4-2, South entered dummy with the diamond ace and ran the club 10. It lost, and the spade return saw the speedy demise of the game.

In view of East’s opening bid, South was unlucky to find the club queen offside. But, unless East’s opening bid was an out and out psyche, declarer could have guaranteed his contract by entering dummy with the diamond ace at trick two, and leading the heart four. If East rises with the ace, declarer has three heart tricks, to bring the trick count up to the requisite nine.

And if East plays low, the queen will win, whereupon declarer can go after clubs. Four tricks are always available in this suit by playing low to the 10. (At pairs one might cash the ace and king, playing for an overtrick if the queen were singleton or doubleton, but this line does not cater for most 5-1 breaks.)

Against four hearts, in an expert game, West led the club queen, and South saw that if diamonds were three-three and hearts three-two, the route to a 10th trick would be straightforward enough. After playing ace, king and another diamond, he could duck a spade return and win the next spade. He would continue by cashing the ace and king of trumps then discarding dummy's last spade on the good diamond. Whether the defender with the good trump ruffed or not, South's last spade would be ruffed in dummy.

But declarer saw there was an additional chance when East had four diamonds too. If he could force an opponent to lead a trump, he might play the suit without the loss of a trick. For that to work, he had to remove the defenders’ exit cards. So, he ruffed a club at trick two, then played ace, king and a third diamond to East’s 10, while West discarded a spade. East returned the spade queen, and South ducked. After taking the spade 10 continuation with the ace, South led a fourth diamond, on which West correctly discarded a second spade.

Declarer ruffed the diamond in dummy, ruffed another club and exited with a spade. East won and did his best when he returned the heart queen but declarer took the trick with the ace and returned a heart to his king.

This was smart play by South, who reasoned that, with two small hearts, West might have ruffed in on the third spade to lead a heart.

There was scope for more than one successful line of play in four hearts on this deal from the Seniors' Pairs in San Remo.

French star Christian Mari reached that spot after West had overcalled two spades. West led the spade king, which declarer won and immediately returned a spade. West now helpfully switched to a diamond. This was won by the jack and declarer now led a low heart to the queen and king, and East returned a trump.

Declarer now cashed the diamond king and ace, and led a spade. East discarded a club and declarer ruffed. Next came the club ace and king and the fourth spade. Whatever East did, Mari was home, the winning trump and winning club falling together on the last trick.

At another table Paul Hackett declared four hearts on an uncontested auction after South had opened one no-trump. Here West led the spade king and Hackett won and finessed in hearts, West playing the 10. Hackett now exited with a spade and West won and switched to a club. Declarer took all his minor-suit winners, including finessing in diamonds, then led a third spade from the dummy. When East discarded, declarer ruffed and exited with a club to West.

At this stage North held the doubleton heart Q-5 plus a spade, while East held K-9-8 in hearts and South A-6-4. West exited with a spade which East ruffed with the eight. South underruffed, and East had to concede the last two tricks.

As Eddie Kantar wrote, if you have any ambition to be an expert defender, count, count, count!

Against four spades West led his singleton heart to the queen and ace. A low diamond was led toward dummy and West hopped up with the ace and shifted to a low club. Declarer won, and pitched a club on the diamond king, then led a heart from dummy. East took his king, then played the spade ace and another spade but South had the rest easily enough.

What happens if East ducks the heart at trick five? West ruffs declarer’s jack and gets out with a trump. East wins the ace and returns a spade, and South can only trump one heart in dummy, thus has to lose the setting trick to the heart king.

Can East find this defense? He knows that South rates to have started life with precisely one diamond and two clubs. If he had more than two clubs, he would surely have finessed the club jack. Equally, West’s lead of the lowest outstanding card in partner’s suit shows real length or a singleton. As West never supported hearts, his partner’s suit, he could hardly have heart support.

The lead therefore rates to be a singleton. If it is a singleton, it is much wiser to let partner ruff the second heart and get out with a trump. Conclusion: experts count; the rest don’t count — in more ways than one.

Today's deal, from the Open Teams in San Remo, really succeeded in sorting out the men from the boys. Cover up the East and West hands before reading on.

The deal was played at many tables but East/West never entered the auction. South opened the bidding with one spade, North made some sort of limit raise to three spades and South went on to game. Plan the play on the lead of the heart jack.

Where the ‘boys’ were declaring, South won the lead and played a trump. But West went in with the ace and switched to the club king and another club, East winning with the ace and delivering West a club ruff for the setting trick. Well defended.

The ‘men’ were more alert to the possible danger. They won the heart ace, crossed to dummy with the diamond ace and discarded a club on the heart king before touching trumps.

According to the Daily Bulletin, the board was played 32 times in the Open Teams, and on 30 occasions the contract was four spades. On 14 occasions the result was down one, but on five of those the opening lead was the club king, so there was nothing declarer could do.

So we can be reasonably confident that at least nine declarers failed to cater for the potential club ruff. Sixteen declarers succeeded, but we don’t know if any of them were also careless but went unpunished.

Almost every bridge player has a decent chance to score their aces and kings when they get the chance. But what distinguishes the better bridge player from his counterpart is the ability to score his small cards at the right time.

For example consider today’s deal, where after East-West have competed in spades, South has to make 12 tricks in diamonds. On winning the lead of the spade king with the ace, declarer should eliminate trumps, to make sure the defenders do not score a trump promotion by a ruff or overruff.

So play a middle trump to dummy’s king, followed by the two of trumps to your ace. Next comes ace and another heart to West’s king, marking the suit as no worse than 4-2.

After ruffing the spade continuation with a middle trump, the heart suit needs two entries to establish a long card and another to enjoy the long heart. As you have kept the precious three of trumps in hand, and the four in dummy, you have one entry to the North hand in the trump suit and two in clubs. 12 tricks made!

For the record, if you switch the club king and 10, you can still make six diamonds after the spade lead. But you have to be VERY careful. At trick two you must lead the low heart from hand. Then you can ruff the spade return, unblock the heart ace, draw two rounds of trumps ending in dummy, and go about establishing hearts as before.