South correctly opened one spade here, because with five losers he thought he would need two cover cards or some trump support to make game. Things turned out well when his partner was able to give a limit raise in spades. After cue-bidding and checking for key cards, he found himself in six spades on the lead of the heart jack. Put yourself in his shoes:. How do you plan to make 12 tricks? Whom do you want to play for the diamond ace?

After winning the heart lead, you should draw trump with the ace and queen, then lead the diamond seven toward the dummy. When West holds the diamond ace, as here, he is caught on the horns of a dilemma, also known as a “Morton’s Fork.” If he takes his diamond ace, the eventual discard on the diamond king will take care of the club queen.

West’s choice of playing low is no better. After the diamond king wins, you will throw a diamond from dummy on the third round of hearts. When you exit with the diamond queen to West’s ace, he is endplayed. A red-suit return will allow you to ruff in dummy and throw the club queen from hand, while a club back will guarantee two tricks in the suit.

This same position does not arise if you play East for the diamond ace; if he had that card, he could duck the first round of diamonds, then win his ace and lead a club through the ace-queen.

Two of the biggest truisms in the game are that second hand should 'always' play low while third hand should 'always' play high. Particularly if you've been listening to lecturers telling you how to preserve your honors, then here, when the defenders lead a spade against three no-trump, you know not to waste the spade jack at trick one. Right? Not exactly.

If neither opponent had bid, putting up the spade jack would probably be a very poor play; that is because you can insure your side a spade trick by keeping your powder dry and preserving the spade jack and queen for the purposes they were intended, not throwing them away. Imagine West with A-9-7-6 of spades and you will see that rising with the jack might be the only way to go down in this hand!

But that is not so today; you do have opposition bidding, which tells you that West has most of the partnership’s high-cards and five or more spades. Here if you play low from dummy then when East inserts the nine you score your spade queen at trick one but West will have four spades ready to cash when in with the diamond ace.

Instead put up the spade jack and knock out the diamond ace. That way you preserve the spade honors in your hand and West cannot run the spades. Note that if East began with either a doubleton spade ace or king you are dead in the water, whatever you do.

Today's deal is a tester. Against your slam of six spades West leads a trump — which certainly feels like a good start for the defenders, though in fact a low heart lead would have been fatal. With one diamond and six spade tricks, you need to score all five of your clubs, and that simply requires 4-3 clubs. But can you improve on those chances?

The answer is yes, but the play must be precise. Win the spade queen, and when both opponents follow, you lead a diamond to the ace, a club to the ace, and take a diamond ruff. This is followed by a low club ruff (do NOT cash the club king) and the sight of the club jack should alert you to the possibilities of a bad break in that suit.

A diamond ruff, and a low club ruff disclose the bad news. A diamond ruff high and the spade ace reduces everyone to four cards. You have a trump, a heart and the K-10 of clubs, dummy and West have four hearts, and East is down to the doubleton heart ace and the guarded club queen. On the last trump if East pitches a club, you cash two winners; if he throws a small heart away, you lead a heart and endplay him. And if he pitches his heart ace, you lead a heart to the nine and claim, whoever wins the trick!

In today's deal West entered with the unusual no-trump, showing at least 5-5 shape in the minor suits. South's double proclaimed a strong hand, and North now had a problem. His selection of three hearts on a hand containing an ace and a king was an underbid; I think that four clubs would have been best. All was well, though, when South rebid three spades and North raised to four spades. How would you play this when West leads the club king to your ace?

Declarer could see eight spades and only six hearts between his hand and the dummy. It seemed therefore slightly more likely that West held one spade and two hearts rather than the other way around. So he crossed to the trump king and led a diamond to the ace. A heart to the ace was followed by another diamond toward the South hand.

East saw that he could not gain by ruffing a loser with a master trump so he discarded, and declarer won with the diamond king. He then surrendered the third round of diamonds, planning to ruff the fourth round. West won the trick and could not thwart declarer’s plan. If he returned a diamond, declarer would ruff with dummy’s five and the defenders would then score just two trump tricks to go with the one diamond trick. If instead West returned a club, declarer would ruff in his hand and lead a fourth round of diamonds himself, ruffing in the dummy.

Either way, the contract was home.

At the table South knew that his partner's four-club bid would deliver a degree of spade fit and suitability for slam, and he gambled that he would be able to discard diamonds from dummy on his hearts, or that a well-placed queen would give him a finesse for slam.

A casual onlooker might take a cursory glance at today’s deal and remark on the dangers of reaching a grand slam that appears to hinge on a finesse. You would be right in theory, of course, but wrong in practice. The grand slam comes closer to an 85 percent chance if properly handled. With that hint, let’s reassess declarer’s best line on the lead of a top club.

The play is to take the club king with the ace, then ruff a club with the queen, followed by the spade ace, and the spade six to the nine. When trumps behave, as they will do at least two-thirds of the time, you take a second club ruff, then play a heart to the 10, take a third club ruff, and finally lead a diamond to the ace.

At this point South’s diamond loser can be discarded on the spade jack and the last four tricks are taken with South’s 100 honors in hearts.

This line of play is known as a dummy-reversal, in that by ruffing in the long hand you get six trump tricks where only five had seemed to exist. If trumps break 4-1, you take the diamond finesse, of course.

The North cards are difficult to evaluate at the second turn, but facing a response that shows five spades (you would have made a negative double with four spades), your partner took the slightly pushy position to jump to three spades, buoyed by the knowledge that he had no wasted values in hearts.

How will you play your contract of six spades when West accurately leads the heart 10?

You win with dummy’s heart ace of course, and must attempt to discard your heart loser on a minor-suit winner before playing on trump. Everyone follows to the ace and king of diamonds, but on the third round, East is mean enough to ruff the diamond queen with the trump three. You overruff with the four, cross to the club ace, and try your luck with the diamond 10. Again, East persists in his irritating defense by ruffing in with the seven. What now?

Again, you have no choice. You overruff with the eight and must now attempt to throw all three of dummy’s heart losers on your club K-Q-J. Will the club suit assist you by breaking 4-4? No, but your luck turns on the fourth round of clubs. You discard dummy’s last heart, and although East is out of clubs, he is finally out of small trumps and can only ruff in with the spade ace.

Now you can draw West’s last trump and ruff your heart in dummy whatever the defenders do.

When South discovered that his side had all the key-cards, his mind turned optimistically for a second to thoughts of a spade grand slam. One of the merits of Key-card Blackwood is that it also allows you to identify the trump queen and specific kings. When North showed the spade queen but denied any kings, South knew he was high enough.

Against the small slam the lead was the club queen to South’s king. The two top spades draw all the trump; now how should you advance?

The 100 percent play is to cash the diamond ace, then cross to hand with the heart king and lead the diamond 10. If West follows low, play the queen. Should it score, declarer is home with an overtrick. If East wins, declarer has three entries to table (in the form of a spade, heart and club) to enable him to set up and enjoy the long diamond.

As the cards lie, though, when West shows out on the second diamond, dummy plays low and East can win the jack. But declarer has plenty of entries to take the ruffing finesse against the diamond king and nine, and eventually discard his club on the established diamond.

Paradoxically, if West had led his singleton diamond, this would have been an extremely easy play to find because the risk of the 5-1 diamond break would have been foremost in declarer’s mind.

How should you play your heart game when West leads the diamond queen to dummy's ace?

If you can force the defenders to open up spades for you, you hold your losers in that suit to one. To that end, you should aim to eliminate the red suits and exit in clubs. Suppose you cross to a trump at trick two, ruff your remaining diamond, and play ace and another club. Today East could win the second club with the jack, play a spade to the queen, win the third club with the king, and send another spade through. That would be one down.

To prevent East from gaining the lead twice in clubs, you must make the first club lead from dummy, intending to insert the club 10. If West (who cannot attack spades effectively) wins and returns a club, you will win with the ace and exit in clubs, forcing the defenders to play spades or concede a ruff-sluff.

What if East plays the club jack on the first round? You win with the club ace, cross to a trump, and lead toward your club 10. If East ducks, you will play the club 10 to duck the trick into the safe hand. Suppose instead that East rises with the club king and switches to a spade, West winning with the queen. West can now cash the club queen but must then lead into your spade tenace. The contract is safe unless East happens to hold all three missing club honors.