9 top tricks

You're sitting North with a tasty 17-count and the auction proceeds as shown. Most Souths would simply bid 3NT over your 3♣ rebid, but your partner sniffed the possibility of a minor suit slam – and here you are in 6♣ wondering how to make 12 tricks on the lead of a small trump.

As all good declarers do, you count your tricks – if the trumps break kindly, you have just 9 top tricks: four in clubs, 3 in diamonds and one each in hearts and spades – and have to find three more tricks to make your contract. What's your plan?

The answer is that this hand is perfectly designed for a cross-ruff.  Once you've taken your two major-suit aces, you can ruff spades in dummy and hearts in your hand. Backwards and forwards till the cows come home (or until an opponent overruffs).

So how does it go? The golden rule of cross-ruffing is that you cash all your winners in the side-suits before you embark on the cross-ruff. So after winning the first trick in your hand, take the plunge and

• cash your three top diamonds. Phew! everyone follows to the third round.
• cash the ♥ A and the ♠A and you're ready to start the cross-ruff.
• ruff a spade in dummy, then ruff a heart in your hand, then ruff a spade in dummy, then ruff a heart in your hand, then ...
• ... and so on.

As it happens, every time an opponent can ruff, you can overruff, so you're going to make all 13 tricks. Just a bit better than the 9 top tricks that are all you can make in 3NT.

The opening lead

When the opposition end up finding a fit in a suit that neither of them bid first, a trump is usually a good lead. Why? Because, as here, they're likely to be short in each other's longest suit and a cross-ruff may be possible. Leading a trump takes away TWO of their trumps, which might otherwise make two separate tricks if used in a cross-ruff. 

So East's trump lead here is a good one. She's hoping that she or her partner can get in again before the cross-ruff gets going, in which case they can lead another trump and stop declarer in his tracks. No luck on this occasion, but it will often pay off.

Notes on the auction

Not a wonderful auction, but it gets NS to a good place:

North's 1♠ is uncontroversial.

South's 2♥ shows a 5-card suit (the only sequence in Acol that guarantees a 5-card suit from responder) and at least 10 points.

North's 3♣ is a REVERSE: it takes the auction beyond 2♠ and shows a strong hand with at least 16 points. As South has shown 10+ points, this is forcing to game on both players.

South's 4♣ is a bit of a punt, taking the auction above the obvious contract of 3NT as it does, but it pays off here.

North uses Blackwood to discover that South has both missing aces (one would have been enough) and punts the small slam.

Yes, the grand slam is on, but getting to 6♣ with a combined 29 points ain't bad. Well done to the two Box pairs that bid and made 6♣. In Bath only ONE pair found the slam – everyone else in the room stopped in 3NT.

An impossible slam

Never mind how you got there. You and your partner have bid your way to a magnificent 6♠ on a hand where you have a 10-card trump fit, all the Aces and all but one of the kings. Marvellous. You can see 11 top tricks, so all that remains is to find something to ruff in one hand or the other for your 12th trick ...

... and then it all falls apart. Your hand and the dummy are mirror images: each has 5 spades, 3 hearts, 3 diamonds and 2 clubs. You can't ruff anything, and it seems that you have TWO diamond losers. Shucks. That means that all those unadventurous ******s who stopped in 4♠ are going to get a top, while you will earn a bottom for bidding a perfectly decent slam. Unfair!

In situations like this, hopeless as it seems, there are two possible routes to success. One is to hope the defence will make a mistake (as they often will!) and the other is to think of particular holdings they might have that will allow you to make your contract. I can think of one, albeit very unlikely, off the top of my head: supposing East has the singleton ♦K – it drops under your ♦A, and then you lead a low diamond towards your ♦J: West makes a trick with her ♦Q, but your ♦J then becomes your 12th trick. Unfortunately that's got less than a 1% chance of coming off.

That said, the answer isn't a million miles away from that. Consider this: you can't get a ruff yourself, but what if you could persuade an opponent to lead something that would give you a ruff? Supposing you had no hearts or clubs left and a defender were to lead a club or a heart? You could ruff in one hand and discard a losing diamond from the other: a useful technique for declarers that is unsurprisingly known as ruff and discard. But why would a defender be so stupid? Well, perhaps she doesn't have a choice. Watch:

You clear trumps – it takes just two rounds. You then play three rounds of hearts and two rounds of clubs. Now you can ruff either of those suits in either hand. Now you lead your ♦A and both defenders play low. Now then. Just supposing (and here you have to cross your fingers) that one opponent started with ♦Kx. A diamond doubleton headed by the King. When you lead another diamond she wins the trick ... and it's her lead. But what can she lead? She has no trumps, and she no longer has any diamonds. She has to lead a heart or a club. And at this point you gratefully discard a diamond from one hand while ruffing in the other. 12 tricks.

And as you can see if you click on 'Show all hands', poor old East does indeed have ♦Kx. Lucky? You bet. But you sometimes have to make your own luck. In 1955 Victor Mollo and Nico Gardener wrote a wonderful book called Card Play Technique or The Art of Being Lucky. Says it all.

Postscript

The above is an example of a quite advanced play called Elimination and Endplay: you eliminate your holdings in the suits you want to ruff, then endplay an opponent – that is, force him to take a trick and make a lead he doesn't want to make. Worked a treat here!

Think ahead!

East wasn't in the mood for sophisticated bidding when her partner opened a weak 2♠. Figuring that West was unlikely to hold the club Ace, she decided that a small slam in hearts should have a reasonable chance and bid it direct..

Seeing partner's hand, however, she wished that she'd taken things a bit more slowly, as (assuming no nasty breaks) she could see 13 tricks: six each in hearts and diamonds plus the Ace of spades.

But just because it looks easy doesn't mean that you shouldn't plan the play – indeed, it's precisely when things look easy that danger lurks. So. How do you play to the first trick if South leads a spade? a club? a diamond? And how do you subsequently play the hand in each case? Think it out before you read on.

On a spade lead: Win with the Ace, discarding a club from your hand. Then lead dummy's singleton trump and clear trumps. Then cash your diamond winners. 13 tricks.

On a club lead: Ruff with dummy's sole heart. Then come back to your hand by ruffing a spade and clear trumps, before cashing your diamonds and the ♠A. 13 tricks. Don't risk a diamond to your Ace at trick 2. The opposition only have three diamonds between them and they may be 3-0.

On a diamond lead: Win with the Ace (or the King, or the Queen) in your hand. Whatever you do you mustn't win the trick 'cheaply' with the ♦9 (or with dummy's ♦ J, throwing the ♦9). If you do, you've just gone off. Why? Because that ♦9 is your only entry to dummy's long diamonds. Without it, you'll end up having to lead clubs and that'll be that. 

Did you spot the need to keep a diamond entry to dummy? It's easily missed. And actually, I've cheated a bit, because if you look at the full deal, you'll see that North is void in diamonds and is therefore going to RUFF an opening diamond lead. It's in situations like this that you really need to keep your cool. You've planned your play meticulously and BANG! you get the shock of your very first trick getting ruffed – and all that planning goes out of the window. You crossly play the ♦9 from your hand – and go off. Why? Same as before: you need to play the ♦A, ♦K or ♦Q instead. You still need the ♦9 to reach dummy's diamonds later in the play. I know – it goes against the grain to 'waste' an Ace on a lost trick, but with this holding, it's not a trick lost: it's two tricks saved! It's called UNBLOCKING, and it happens all the time.Once you've unblocked, you win whatever North chooses to lead, clear trumps and you still have 12 tricks. Not as good as 13, certainly, but a lot better than going off.

In Box and Bath

In Box 4 out of 5 EW pairs played in 6♥ but more than half made 10 or fewer tricks. If you were one of them, it's well worth another look.

In Bath, all but two pairs were in a slam (two in diamonds rather than hearts) and all but one made it. None of them got a diamond lead, so no excuses for not making 13 tricks.

A marked finesse

Usually finesses involve crossing your fingers but sometimes they're a dead certainty. As on this board.

You're sitting North. The auction's been short and sweet: East has overcalled in your second suit, partner's shown spades and West's passed. If East leads a diamond (as is quite likely) you can almost certainly see 8 tricks in your own hand, which makes 3NT a very attractive punt. True, you haven't got a heart stop but then no-one's bid hearts either, so maybe your partner can help. And if you get that diamond lead you may not need a heart stop anyway.

East duly leads the ♦7 and you can't quite believe your luck when dummy goes down – as well as the top two hearts, your partner also has the ♦J! East must surely have the ♦Q for his overcall, so you thank partner profusely and call for the ♦J, which indeed holds trick 1. 

Now to plan the rest of the hand. You have a total of 9 clubs to the AKQ, so barring a 4-0 club split you'll take 6 club tricks. Add the ♦AK and ♥AK and the trick you've already taken and that makes 11 tricks. Couldn't be better.

So what to do first? It would be as well to check that the clubs are going to break OK. You lead a small club to the ♣A ... and East shows out! The clubs are 4-0 after all.

Time for a slight rethink. Before reading on, decide how you're going to play the rest of the hand for those 11 tricks.

Decided? OK. You will have worked out that West still holds ♣Jxx, and that if you lead a small club from dummy you can catch that Jack and still get your 6 club tricks. This is, of course, the marked finesse of the title. But first you have to get the lead to dummy. How to do that? Simple – lead a small heart to the ♥A.

So is that it, then? Over to dummy with a heart, then play on clubs, finessing to catch the Jack? Erm, not quite. You'll make your 6 club tricks, and then you'll cash your ♦AK ... and then you'll look across at that lovely ♥K in dummy and realise, too late, that you can never cash it. You started with a singleton heart and now you don't have a heart left to lead.

The answer is, of course, that when you go over to dummy with the ♥A, you cash the ♥K while you're there, before you take the marked finesse in clubs. That's the only way to make 11 tricks.

[Note: The diamond opening lead isn't a great choice. North has, after all, jumped to 3NT in spite of your diamond bid. Much better to lead a heart – the unbid suit. This makes life much more difficult for declarer, as you've taken away her only easy entry to dummy before she knows about the bad club split.]

In Box and Bath

Most pairs in Box were in 3NT, two making 11 tricks ... and two going off! One pair plumped for 5♣ instead, which goes one off. 

In Bath, less than half the pairs were in 3NT, the majority preferring to go off in clubs. The four declarers in 3NT made 9, 11, 11 and 12 (!) tricks.

Give yourself a break

Never mind the auction, or even the contract for the moment. Just check out the spade suit. How do you play it to try and make 5 tricks? It's

♠ A32  opposite  ♠ KQ1076

Most of the time, as you know, the suit will break 3-2, and in this case it's sufficient just to bang out the ♠AKQ and Bingo! – the ♠76 are now good. But sometimes (actually, more than a quarter of the time) they'll split 4-1. Can you still make 5 tricks then? Well, it's all down to the Jack is, isn't it? If it's a singleton, it's dropping on the first round, so no problem. But if one player has Jxxx, it depends who: if South has it, there's nothing you can do. But if North has it, you can catch it by finessing the 10. So. Make a note to yourself. When it comes to playing the spades, you'll want to bang out the ♠K (in case the Jack is singleton), then go over to the ♠A (by which time you'll know whether you have a friendly split or not). Then you'll be in a position to finesse North for the Jack if necessary.

Back to the hand. You're in 4♥ and (providing the spades work out OK) you're wishing you were in 6♥. Never mind. The next best thing is to make 12 tricks: 5 trump tricks, 5 spade tricks, the ♦A and a club ruff. Always providing the spades work out ...

The defence begin with two rounds of clubs. You ruff the 2nd round in dummy and clear trumps in two rounds. So far so good. Now for the spades. You know what to do because you spent a bit of time earlier planning your strategy, didn't you?

• Cash the ♠K. Everyone follows. Note that South follows with the ♠9. That's good, because if she had 4 spades she'd surely have played a lower one.
• Now a small spade over to the ♠A. South shows out. Marvellous – so North will be left with ♠Jx.
• Now it only remains to play your remaining small spade from hand, catching North's ♠Jx with your ♠Q10.

And that's that. Now you just cash your remaining spades and the ♦A for 12 well-deserved tricks.

In Box and Bath

Not so good for us. All five tables in Box were in hearts, and none of them made more than 11 tricks. In Bath, people were in all sorts of contracts (including excellent sacrifices in 5♦X), but all four of the declarers in hearts made 12 tricks. The difference lies in playing the spades correctly.

If you're interested ...

... in looking at this in a little more detail, notice that there's nothing particular clever about this. You'd probably handle spades in the same way even if you knew they were 3-2, because after 3 rounds you're conveniently back in dummy with your remaining spade tricks. And you didn't actually have to decide who to play for ♠Jxxx – the cards decided it for you. You can only finesse North for the ♠J, so you just have to hope that North is the one with the long spades.

And finally, the arithmetic's worth a look. The spades will break 3-2 68% of the time, 4-1 28% of the time and 5-0 just 4% of the time. If they're 4-1, the Jack will be singleton 1 time in 5, so that's 20% of 28% = 5.6% of the time. Which leaves a bit over 11% each for ♠Jxxx being in the North or South hand.

So what? Well, if you just bang out your ♠AKQ, you'll succeed in making 12 tricks 73.6% of the time. But if you play the spades properly, that goes up to almost 85%. Over a lifetime's bridge, that's one hell of a lot of hands!

What club loser? 

It's not easy to reach 6♥ on this deal - you've stopped in 4♥ - but once you can see both hands, the word SLAM! is simply screaming at you. Never mind. You're obviously going to be beaten by any other NS pair that's bid the slam, but all is not lost: your job now is to make as many tricks as you can so as to beat / not be beaten by the other NS pairs who only bid to game, like you. In other words, you've got to make at least 12 tricks.

Let's say East leads a trump (often a good lead when the declarer is in a 3rd-bid suit). Now you can see 12 tricks, possibly 13. Can't you? On the face of it you have a possible diamond loser and a club loser. But hey - you actually don't have a club loser at all, do you? You have ♠AK in your hand and a singleton spade in dummy, so what simpler than to play two rounds of spades, discarding dummy's losing club on the 2nd round?

But there's no hurry. Remembering the excellent principle that you should clear trumps IMMEDIATELY unless you have a good reason for not doing so, you play a further two rounds of hearts, the opponents' remaining trumps falling conveniently, and NOW you make the key play in spades, discarding dummy's club loser.

Now all that remains is to try for 13 tricks by finessing the ♦Q. Sadly it loses to West's ♦K, but that's the only trick you lose. 12 tricks made, even if not bid.

In Box and Bath

Every NS pair in Box ended up in 4♥, but only 1 out of 7 made the 12 tricks. In Bath, OK - a couple of pairs bid the slam, though most didn't. But tellingly, all eight declarers made 12 tricks. Which suggests that it might be worth browsing amongst the Declarer play articles in the Improvers' Pages. There are plenty of them!

Make the rest!

I suppose the auction might have gone something like the one shown. South overcalls 1♠ over East's opening 1♣, West makes a negative double (showing at least 4 of the other major, hearts), North raises partner to 2♠, East passes and with just 5 losers, South punts game: 4♠. 

Things start off badly. West leads the ♣6 - which looks unpleasantly like a doubleton in her partner's suit. As indeed it is: East cashes her ♣AK and leads a 3rd club for her partner to ruff. 3 tricks to the enemy, and you now have to make the rest. Can you?

OK. Count the tricks. Assuming no nasty trump breaks, you're going to make 5 trump tricks, the ♥A and the ♦AK - that's 8 ... leaving you with 2 little diamonds in your hand. The ONLY way you're going to get two tricks out of those is to ruff them BOTH in dummy. And for that to succeed, you'll need a little luck ...

Having ruffed the club, West is on lead, and sensing that you might be wanting to ruff diamonds, leads a trump. You win with dummy's ♠A (otherwise you'll later have to use your ♠A for ruffing, which may cost a trick) and East follows, but the ♠J doesn't appear.

What now? You DON'T clear trumps, of course, because you need BOTH of dummy's remaining trumps for ruffing. So fingers crossed: cash your ♦AK and ruff a diamond with dummy's ♠6.

Phew! Everybody follows. So now you need to get back to your hand to ruff your last diamond. How? Easy: cash your ♥A and ruff a heart. 

And this is where you need your bit of luck. One opponent is now OUT OF DIAMONDS, and you have to hope that whoever it is doesn't hold the ♠J . You lead your last diamond ... and West discards a heart. Bingo! She can't have the ♠J because she would have ruffed. You ruff with your ♠10 and poor old East (who, of course, has the ♠J) has to follow with her 4th diamond. 

And now all you have to do is lead a heart from dummy, ruffing with your ♠9 and you're left with two winners: the KQ of trumps. 10 tricks bid and made.

No finesses!

You're East, declaring in 4♠, and South leads the ♥K. Looks good ... or does it? You're actually in danger of losing FOUR tricks: the ♦A, the ♠K, the ♣K and a small club.

What you'd like to do, of course, is take a couple of finesses. Then if either of the black kings is with North, you're home and dry. Trouble is, you can't get to the dummy to take the finesses! So what to do? Assuming neither of the black kings is singleton (which is sadly the case), which of the four losers can you avoid?

The answer is (with luck) the small club. Provided both opponents have at least 3 clubs, you can ruff it in dummy. Win the first trick, cash the ♣A, then lead the ♣Q and let them win the trick. Then when you get the lead back, lead your little club and ruff it in the dummy – and if NS both follow suit you're home and dry. All that remains is to bang out a couple of rounds of trumps, giving them their ♠K, and the rest of the tricks are yours.

Note that you mustn't touch trumps before setting up the clubs: if you cash your ♠A and then start on the clubs, NS will twig what's going on and lead a 2nd trump – now you'll have no trump left in dummy to ruff the club, and you'll be one off.

A note on the auction

​With 9 playing tricks, East has a pretty good candidate for a 2♣ opening. West replies 2♦ ('Tell me more, partner') and East's 2♠ shows a strong hand almost worth game in spades. West doesn't have much, so must decide between 2NT (a second negative showing virtually nothing) and 4♠ – and with 2 trumps and an outside King, 4♠ seems preferable.

In this situation, 4♠ is very much a 'shut out' bid: OK, partner, you wanna be in game? Here you go, then. But for heaven's sake don't go any further! It's called the Principle of Fast Arrival. A bid of 3♠ would show a much stronger hand and slam interest, and invites an exchange of cue-bids at the 4-level – definitely not appropriate for West's bunch of tram-tickets.

Better in the major

At first glance, this balanced 27-pointer looks like an ideal 3NT combination: 4 tricks in clubs and 2 in each of the other suits (once you've knocked out the ♥ AK). In practice, you're likely to be restricted to 9 tricks, as the opposition can attack either spades or diamonds and take a couple of tricks in either, in addition to their 2 heart tricks. If you're unlucky and they can reel off THREE spade/diamond tricks, you could even go off.

As usual, it's better to be in a major fit if you have one – not only can you stop them reeling off winners in diamonds or spades, but there's also an extra trick up for grabs: you can ruff either a diamond (in dummy) or a spade (in your hand) for the 10th trick.

'But my hearts are awful!' some will complain – and will complain still more when they find that West hold ♥AK108. It actually doesn't matter much if you play it sensibly ... so how to you plan the play on the lead of, say, ♣10?

The play

The best way to play the trumps is, of course, to lead low from your hand TOWARDS the high cards in dummy. Any reason not to attack trumps immediately? No – always bearing in mind that we want to take a diamond or spade ruff at some point. 

• So win in your hand and lead a low heart. West goes up with the King and leads another club.
• Same again – win in your hand and lead another heart. West plays low, you go up with the ♥J ... and East shows out. Yuk!
• Hmm. This changes things. Time to get that ruff out of the way before West clears trumps for you! The thing is, you need to keep your ♥Qx in dummy to stop West scoring two more trump tricks, so abandon the idea of the diamond ruff and ruff a spade in your hand instead. How does it go?
• A small spade to your Ace, another spade out to dummy's King, then lead your last spade from dummy and ruff. West follows suit – phew!
• Now that's out of the way, you lead your last trump towards dummy and West can take his K now or later. 

Gosh - that looks more like 11 tricks than 10 – you'd better count them up for yourselves. In any event, 10 or 11 is better than 9 (or 8!) tricks in No Trumps.

Three things to take from this hand

1. In general, prefer the major fit to NT
2. Don't be discouraged from clearing trumps just because you have a poor holding
3. Make sure you do any ruffing before you use up all your trumps.

In Box and Bath

Most people were in it, but quite a few went off in both venues. Should have tested the hearts before starting on the ruffs ... At least no-one in Box got into the horrendous 6NT, as two pairs did in Bath (going 2 and 4 off respectively).

Look before you leap

Today's hand is mainly about declarer play, but we can glean a couple of useful basics from the auction too.

The auction

South has a 'rule of 20' 1♠ opening, and West's 2♦ overcall takes away North's intended  2♣ response. Hmph. It does, however, provide a perfect opportunity an even better bid: a negative double (the bid that everyone forgets!). This simply says 'I have enough points to respond – anything from 6 upwards – and I have at least 4 of the other major, hearts.'

East passes, and South can now bid 2♥, agreeing hearts as the trump suit. She doesn't jump, because she's a minimum opening with minimum points and 7 losers.

And the rest is easy. Holding opening points herself, North is strong enough to raise her partner to game in hearts. Everyone passes, West leads the ♦K and North's hand goes down as dummy ...

The play

Now then. Nearly everyone in Box and Bath found 4♥ one way or another, but only one Box pair made it and even in Bath two pairs went off. Yet the contract is easily makeable.

I agree that things don't look great at first sight. Once your ♦A is knocked out, you have two diamond losers and two missing Aces. That adds up to four losers – one too many. And if you simply shrug your shoulders, give up and mechanically start to clear trumps, you're going off: the opposition will grab their ♥A, cash two further diamond tricks and, either immediately or later, will cash their ♣A for one off.

And yet it's so easy to make the contract. Stop, check out the two hands, plan the play ... and you have your 10 tricks. When you've decided what to do, click for the answer.

Extra tricks

You're East, declarer in 4♥, and South leads the ♦K. How are you going to play the hand? How many tricks do you think you'll make? What does that depend on? Have a ponder before reading on.

The word that should be at the front of your mind is 'finesse'. There are all sorts of things you don't know about the hand, but the most important one is the location of the trump King. If South has the ♥K, it's going to make them a trick; but if North has it, it's not.

You're always going to make your contract, mind. Count it up: you have 4 trump tricks (assuming losing one to the ♥K), one diamond trick, two club tricks (once you've knocked out the ♣A) and (at least) 3 spade tricks. That's 10. But this is pairs: it's not about 'making your contract' – it's about making as many tricks as you can. So it's important to go for the extra trick.

So what's the plan? Dead simple.

• You win the first trick and, having no reason not to draw trumps, that's what you do. But you want to try the trump finesse, and for that the lead has to be in dummy. How are you going to manage that?
• Easy. Lead a small spade to dummy's ♠K. And now you're in the right place to lead a trump. But which one?
• Well, if the finesse fails, it doesn't matter. But what if it works? Then you'll want to do it again. So you have to lead the Queen, playing low from hand. Because after the finesse succeeds (which it does) you want the lead still to be in dummy. So at trick 4 ...
• ... lead another heart (a low one will do this time), winning the trick with the ♥9 or ♥10. And when that wins (South showing out) ...
• ... bang out your ♥A and have the satisfaction of watching North's ♥K crash under it.

The rest of it's plain sailing. It remains only to force out the ♣A (after which they'll take a diamond trick), but you have all the rest: 11 tricks. Lovely.

In Box and Bath

The problem is, all six pairs in Box got into the right contract, but only one made 11 tricks. What went wrong? I can only think that they didn't take the trump finesse. Or maybe they did but led a small heart instead of the ♥Q and found themselves in the wrong hand and so banged out the ♥A anyway, hoping the ♥K would drop ... and it didn't. If you're one of those declarers, it's worth physically dealing out the hand and going through the play again.

In Bath, again pretty well everyone was in 4♥, but only two pairs failed to make 11 tricks – and one even made 12. Talking of which ...

Question

Suppose you get a club (or a spade) lead instead of a diamond. Now (again assuming the ♥K is right, which it is) you're worth 12 tricks, not 11. How's it done?

Don't panic!

Ignore the auction. It's just one possible route to a 6♥ contract by South. You found your way there somehow, West leads the ♠5, down goes dummy and you're South, with the task of making 12 tricks.

A lot of less experienced players are very nervous of slams – the fear takes over, they stop thinking and go off. Me too: I remember my partner putting me into 7♠ on an early visit to Bathford and I was shaking so badly I almost dropped the cards ...

But let's not do that here. The contract is unbeatable and what's more, dead easy to make. It's just a question of counting up your tricks and doing things vaguely in the right order.

Don't panic – take a deep breath and plan the play and you'll see how easy it is. When you're done, click for the answer.

10 + 2 = 12

Never mind the auction for a moment. Just put yourself in the North seat, East having led the ♠Q, and plan your play. You have 4 trump tricks and 2 top tricks in each of the other three suits. That's 10 tricks. Where are the other 2 going to come from?

Well, there are two possibilities. One is to play two rounds of spades and then ruff TWICE in the South hand. Provided it all goes OK, that'll give you two EXTRA trump tricks and get you home. You'll need a bit of luck, because on the 4th round one opponent or the other will also be out of spades (count it up for yourself), so you may have to ruff the last round HIGH.

The other is to work on clubs. If you're lucky, the missing clubs will be 3-3, leaving your last two clubs in dummy as tricks in their own right - 13 tricks! But even if they're 4-2 you can set up your 5th club as a trick, so you should be able to scrape home.

Which shall we try? Let's do the clubs. Since we may need to ruff twice, I'm only going to take ONE round of trumps first - don't want them leading trumps and taking away a trump I need to ruff with. So.

• I win trick 1 in my hand (leaving the ♠A as an extra entry to dummy for later) and cash the Ace of trumps (both opponents following suit, thank goodness).
• Now two rounds of clubs ending in dummy, and I notice that East drops the ♣Q on the second round. Never mind. Carry on. If East DOES overruff me on the next trick, that will at least mean that no-one has more than 2 trumps left. I can afford to lose one trick, remember.
• So ... lead a low club from dummy and ruff with the ♥9 - and, as sure as eggs is eggs, East overruffs with the ♥10. 
• Never mind. Win whatever East leads back in dummy and lead a fourth club, this time ruffing HIGH. East can only discard.

And now there are no clubs left apart from one in dummy. So take two more rounds of trumps (East has them both - it turns out that the hearts were 4-1) ending in dummy, and you only have winners left. So which were your extra 2 tricks? One was a club ruff (the one you ruffed high) and the other was the 5th club that you established.

Have a look at all the hands and play it through for yourself. And then, as an exercise, try the alternative route and ruff two spades instead. It works just as well, provided you get stuck in before clearing trumps!
 

So what about the auction? The one shown employs a very useful slam convention called Jacoby, whereby a 2NT response to 1 of a major shows game-going support and interest in a slam. 

North's 3NT response shows 15+ points, with no shortages, and the next two bids are cue bids showing the ♣A and ♦A respectively.

At this point, South reckons that Blackwood will handle the rest: North's 5♥ response shows 2 key cards and South can now raise to 6♥.

In Bath, 6 of the 13 tables reached 6♥ – though only 2 of them made it! One rather ambitious pair went off in 7♥, while another (greedy for the extra 10 points?) went off in 6NT. No trumps aren't much use here, of course, because you need to do some ruffing to come to 12 tricks.

Split honours

How do you play this suit to make 4 tricks? You're bound to lose a trick to either the K or the Q, but you don't want to lose a trick to both.

West  AJ10xx       xxx  East

The answer is to play for split honours. That is, you hope that the King's in one hand and the Queen's in another. And you simply finesse – twice. How does it work?

• Lead a small card from East, and if South plays low insert the 10. You're expecting to lose the trick to either the Q or K in North's hand.
• OK. If the honours are split, South has the other one. So next time you're in, lead another low card from East and this time insert the Jack.
• If it wins, it only remains to cash your Ace (dropping the K or Q, whichever it is) and you've got your 4 tricks.

Fine. But supposing the K and Q are both in the same hand. What then? Well, it's 50-50. If South has them both, no problem: you still have your 4 tricks. But if North has them both, you've lost two tricks.

All this adds up to a 75% chance of success – a much better chance than the alternatives, such as cashing the Ace and hoping for a singleton K or Q to drop.

Have a go

On the hand shown (Board 4), EW have snuck into a 2♥ contract, even though they have only 18 points. Going one off isn't a bad result, but how much nicer to make it. 

It begins badly, with NS cashing three spade tricks, but then they let you in with your ♣A. Now to clear trumps. How does it go ...?

• You're already in dummy, so lead a small heart, inserting the ♥10. North wins with the ♥Q and leads another club.
• You win with the ♣K and lead a second small heart. As it happens, you don't need to finesse again as the ♥K appears, so you simply win with the ♥A and then clear the remaining trump with your ♥J.

Now it only remains to cash a couple of spade tricks (all their spades have gone, remember). They get their ♦A, but meanwhile you've chalked up 2 clubs, 2 spades and 4 trump tricks, and you're home and dry.

Postscript

A nice result for EW, as NS can make 3♣ – difficult for them to find it, though, as it would involve South overcalling 2♣ vulnerable with an utterly threadbare suit. Would have paid off this time, sure, but in the long run will cost dearly.

Meanwhile, if you're missing the KQ, remember to play for split honours. Got you a top on this board, certainly!

Getting lucky

Just for fun, let's be West trying to make 6♥ after the auction shown. North leads the ♦A, and presumably will lead the ♦K on trick 2. What are your thoughts?

'Oh dear' (or something stronger) might be appropriate, because it looks as if you can't avoid losing a spade trick in addition to the A♦. But might there be a chance? What spade distributions would enable you to get home?

There are three possibilities:

1. If either opponent holds ♠QJ doubleton, you can drop them with your ♠AK. A 1-in-16 chance.
2. If North holds singleton ♠Q or ♠J, you can drop it with your ♠A and then catch South's honour by finessing from dummy. Again, a 1-in-16 chance.
3. If South holds QJx (or QJxx or QJxxx) you can finesse from dummy twice. A 1-in-4 chance.

Which to try? I think most players will go for option 3, reasoning that (a) it has the best raw chance and (b) South is likely to have more spades than North (because North has shown a likely 6-card diamond suit and so has fewer spaces for spades). But some will reason that North needs more than just the ♦AK for his overcall and is more likely than South to have points in spades.

Which gets your vote? Are you going to finesse (option 3) or play your ♠A (options 1 or 2)?

Decided?

OK. If you took the finesse (option 3) you've lost. Let's say instead that you led your ♠A – and are delighted to see North drop the ♠Q. Whoopee! But you're not out of the wood yet, because you still don't know whether North started with ♠QJ (in which case you now want to lead your ♠K to drop it) or with singleton ♠Q (in which case you want to go out to dummy and finesse) ...

Decided?

If you led your ♠K you lost, because North did indeed start with a singleton ♠Q – bad luck. Once you see the ♠Q drop, it's actually slightly more likely that South started with Jxxx (because, as we've seen, South has more spaces for spades than North does), so it's best to get over to dummy and start finessing.

Lucky? You bet! But it illustrates a key principle in bridge: if there's a chance, have a go – the cards might just be the way you need them to be. And if there's a number of possibilities, as here, cross your fingers and pick one! What you don't do is sigh and lay your cards on the table saying 'I'm afraid I have to give you a spade trick as well. One down. Sorry partner ...'

In Bath ...

Just one pair reached the slam, and they made it. I suspect that North made it easier for declarer by switching to his singleton ♠Q at trick 2 (having cashed his ♦A at trick 1). Now declarer's thinking will be 'I wonder why North would switch to a high spade honour – must be a singleton, eh ...?'

Bid – and make – 4♠

The best contract on this hand is 4♠, which makes comfortably. In Bath, hardly anyone got there, and only one pair made it. In Box, 3 out of 6 tables got there (well done), but no-one made it! So what's the problem?

First, the auction. Straightforward as far as it's shown here – West has rebid 2NT, showing her 18-count, and East has to decide what to do. Game looks good, but if partner has 3 spades it'll probably play better in spades than in NT. So what to do? Easy – in this situation any bid other than pass is obviously forcing to game, so East can bid 3♥ (showing 4 hearts and therefore 5 spades - think about it!) or simply 3♠ (showing 5 spades) and West will duly raise to 4♠.

What about the play? It's really just a question of adding up tricks: if you're lucky and the trumps break, you'll get 5 spade tricks, three clubs, one diamond and ... where's the 10th trick coming from? Has to be from hearts. You lead a low heart towards the King, and if North goes up with the Ace, your ♥K will provide the 10th trick. If that doesn't work, you can (after leading another heart) ruff a heart in dummy (the short trump hand) for your 10th trick.

What happens here? Say you get a club lead: ♣J. Win in your hand and lead a low heart to the King. It works - the ♥A is with South, and you're home ...

... or are you? It might be worth just getting rid of your remaining club honour, because later you can perhaps dump that little losing diamond on dummy's ♣A. How does it go? South has taken his heart Ace and now leads a diamond. You win with the Ace, pop over to your hand to get rid of your last club and now clear trumps: take the ♠AK - oops! North shows out on the 2nd round, and so South started with ♠J10xx. Annoying. Never mind. Let's play on the clubs ... Lead your ♣A, discarding the diamond loser from your hand and South gratifyingly drops his ♣10 - leaving your ♣9 as a winner. Marvellous. Lead your ♣9, and that gets you your 10th trick. If South trumps, you're making all your spades. And if he doesn't, you've just made an extra trick in clubs.

Notice that you didn't just clear trumps at trick 2, because you needed to set up a possible heart ruff in dummy first. And that gave you the flexibility you needed to change course in mid-stream when you discovered the bad trump split. Tricky, but better than 3NT, which only makes 9 tricks.

Leading question

You're East playing in 4♠ following an auction in which NS remained silent, and South leads the ♥K. Looks promising, doesn't it?

How do you plan to proceed?

Well, adding up tricks, you can see 4 spade tricks (5 if you can finesse to catch the Queen), at least three heart tricks, at least two diamond tricks ... and you can ruff a club in dummy (provided you leave a trump there for the purpose!) for your 10th trick. 

What about losers? You're going to lose the 2 minor Aces and, if you're unlucky, the Queen of trumps. 

So what do you do? Try the spade finesse? Or lead a club to set up your club ruff in dummy?

The answer is: neither!

Take a look at South's lead. West has bid hearts, yet South has chosen to lead the King. She doesn't have the Queen, as you can see that in dummy ... so what's going on? Why would she choose a suicidal lead like that? Answer: it's clearly a singleton, and she's hoping for a ruff.
 

Disaster

Say you finesse the ♠J at trick 2. If South wins with the Queen she'll surely put partner in with one of the minor-suit Aces and get a heart ruff. One down.

Or say you lead a club. North wins with the Ace and leads a heart for South to ruff. Again, probably one down.

Salvation

Once you know South has no hearts, it's simply too dangerous to play 'normally'. The priority is to denude South of trumps so that she can't ruff. So never mind the finesse – at trick 2, cash the ♠A, and then cash the ♠K ... and lo and behold South's doubleton Queen falls under the King.

Now you're in business! Cash your ♥10 in hand (South can't ruff because she has no trumps left), then over to dummy's ♠10 (clearing North's last trump as you go) and the lead's conveniently in dummy to take a further 4 heart tricks, on which you will chuck your unwanted ♣K8 and ♦83. Eventually, you'll give them a trick with their ♦A, but you'll have romped home with 12 tricks. 

Postscript

You're lucky, of course, that the ♠Q drops, but even if it doesn't, you've saved your contract by banging out your ♠AK straight away.

To see how bad it can get, have a look at all four hands. Say you lead a club at trick 2:

• North wins and before he leads a heart cashes his singleton ♦A. Then comes the heart return
• South ruffs and returns a diamond. North ruffs and returns another heart.
• A careless East will either not ruff or will ruff small. If so, South ruffs with her ♠Q and leads another diamond for North to ruff ...

A simple finesse!

You're South and you're in 4♠. East opened the bidding with 1♦ and you made an (intermediate) jump overcall in spades (showing a 6-card suit and opening points). With just 7 losers and ♠Axx, your partner raised you to game and West has led the ♦J.

How do you plan the play? Count your winners. Count your losers. You need to make 10 tricks before they make 4.

OK? Let's go through it. You have 6 trump tricks. And you will either make this diamond trick or the next one. That's 7. You can also eventually make 3 heart tricks. Hooray! That's 10 ...

... but hang on. If you let them make their ♥K on the way, and they also make their ♦A and their ♣AK (which they will!), they're going to make 4 tricks before you can make your 10. So somehow you have to stop them making the ♥K ...

... and you can only do that if East has it and if you FINESSE it successfully. 

So. A plan. Clear trumps and then take the heart finesse. Easy. Just remember, though, that to finesse the hearts, the lead has to be in dummy. So you have to plan ahead enough to ensure you're in dummy after clearing trumps.

Not difficult. For a start, you can play low to trick 1, and if East goes up with her ♦A you've got a 2nd entry to dummy (the other being the ♠A).

But you don't even need that. There are just 4 trumps to be cleared, and they're unlikely to be worse than 3-1. So cash the ♠KQ in your hand and then lead a low spade out to dummy's Ace and you've cleared trumps and are in dummy as required.

Now, which heart to lead? If the finesse succeeds, you'll want to take it again, so lead the 10 or 9 (not the 5!), playing low from your hand – and when it works the lead's still in dummy and you can repeat the finesse, getting the 3 heart tricks you require to make your contract.

As it happens, the ♥K drops on the 2nd heart trick, so up with the Ace and lead the ♥J back, overtaking with the Queen, and (if they haven't already cashed their ♣AK) you can discard one of those losing clubs on dummy's 4th heart, making 11 tricks in all. Lovely!

POSTSCRIPT

The auction shown is just one possibility, and is based on Standard Acol. If you're playing Benji Acol, you'd open 2♦ instead. Here's the reasoning behind it:

2♣   I've got a strong, game-going hand. (Nothing to do with clubs, this bid). Only in exceptional circumstances can either player now stop bidding before game is reached.

2♦   This is a 'relay' bid, meaning: OK, understood. Tell me more.

2♠   My best suit is spades.

The next bid by North is crucial – it's his first real chance to say anything about his holding, rather than just listen to his partner talking about hers.

So what to say? Well, spades are great, so that's one problem out of the way. But should he bid 3♠ or 4♠? Well, this is a bit topsy-turvy, because neither player can stop before game is reached. For this reason, 4♠ would be a very weak bid, saying OK, I like spades but I haven't got anything else to speak of, so I'm putting you straight into game, as required. I don't want to go any further. With a better holding (and 6 points +5 trumps ain't bad, after such a strong opening), you're better to bid 3♠: this indicates that you have some values outside trumps, and allows bidding space for a few cue-bids if they're required. So:

3♠  Yep, I like spades, and I've got a bit extra, too.

Now it's South's turn to stop and think. Partner likes spades and also has values. Hmm. No point in using RKC Blackwood, as I already have all the key cards myself. No point in cue-bidding, either, for the same reason. So I shall just punt the slam:

6♠  Wish me luck, partner.

The play

So there you are, sitting South, with a diamond lead, and rather wishing you'd stopped in 4♠. Let's plan the play (triple-click to check):

First, how many tricks have you got off the top?

Ten. 5 in trumps, the ♦AK, the ♥AK and the ♣A.

It's not hard to see a way of making one more certain trick. How?

You can ruff a heart in your hand or a club in dummy for an extra trick.

But that still leaves you one short ... So can you see a possible 12th trick anywhere?

Or put another way: you have two losers, a club and a diamond. Can you see a way of avoiding either of those?

Well, there aren't many candidates, are there? If you can't think of any at all, have a look at this clue:

You have to try and win a trick with your ♣Q. It's your only chance. But how do you do that?

OK. If you're worked it out, well done. If you haven't, the answer's below. Either way, read on.

You win trick 1, and clear trumps in 2 rounds, ending in your hand.

Now's the time to try for the extra club trick. It's a 50% chance. You have to hope that West has the ♣K. If he does, you're home. So you ...

... lead a low club towards the Queen. If West has the King, you've just made your 12th trick. If he plays it, your ♣Q is now worth a trick. If he doesn't, you play your ♣Q ... and it wins. So either way, you've now got two tricks in clubs. Let's assume West wins the trick with his ♣K. How does it go?

• He probably leads a heart. You win in your hand.
• Take your newly-earned trick with the ♣Q.
• The lead's now in dummy, so back to your hand with a heart.
• Now lead your ♣A, discarding a losing diamond from dummy.
• And that's it. You have a winning diamond, and lots of trumps and 12 tricks.

So not a great slam to be in really, as it relies on a finesse, but once you're in it, you might as well try to make it. And this time, your luck was in.


And in Bath?
 
Most pairs played safe and stopped short of the slam. One pair had a disappointing time in 6NT, which went two off, and the two pairs that did find 6♠ only made 11 tricks. So our putative pair above would have scored 100%.

Given the auction,

• How many hearts do N and S have?
• Who do you think has the ♥Q?
• Who do you think has the ♥10?

Here are my answers:

• North should have 6 hearts for his bid, leaving South with a singleton.
• We don't know who has the ♥Q, but North is at least 6:1 favourite ('at least' because many players wouldn't open a weak 2 with a suit as poor as ♥10xxxxx).
• Again, North is the clear favourite to have the ♥10, but might have opened with just ♥Qxxxxx.

Now then. Supposing you need three heart tricks for your contract, without losing a trick along the way. How do you play the hearts?

Well, you could lead a low heart from West, and (if North plays low) insert your ♥9. Trouble is, if South's singleton heart is the ♥Q or the ♥10, you've lost your trick along the way.

What about starting with your ♥J, then? This is better, isn't it? If North and dummy play low, you'll only lose the trick if South has the singleton ♥Q (which we originally thought was pretty unlikely). (And if North does cover with the ♥Q, you take the trick, come back to your hand and use your other heart to finesse for the ♥10: you can't lose, as South now has no hearts left.)

There's a possible bonus here: if North plays low and South does have the ♥10, it drops under your ♥J and you've just conned your way into not just three but four heart tricks: all you have to do is come back to your hand and lead your second heart, finessing for North's ♥Q.

What makes all this possible, of course, is that lovely little ♥9 sitting in dummy. Change East's holding to ♥AK64 and you're only getting two heart tricks however you play it. The lesson to take away, then, is to keep an eye out for useful 'intermediate' cards like 9s and even 8s. They have a habit of coming into their own.

The full hand

Take a look at the full hand (trying not to notice the North and South hands), and make a plan.

Your first reaction, on counting tricks, might be a slight disappointment that you haven't bid ♠6, because there are certainly 12 tricks there.

Can you count them?

Hint: You can never make 4 heart tricks against the best defence (and in any case, South doesn't have the ♥10), and it's unnecessary to rely on the diamond finesse (which anyway doesn't work).

You have 6 trump tricks (assuming that you can catch the ♠Q without losing a trick).
You have two diamond tricks.
You have two certain heart tricks (or an almost certain 3 provided you clear South's trumps before proceeding to your second heart trick - remember, he only has a singleton heart!)
So for your 12th trick, you have to be trumping clubs in dummy.

And actually, if you can ruff clubs twice in dummy, you don't need all that complicated stuff with the hearts. Let's try it:

• Take the first trick with the ♦A. (Don't risk playing the ♦J.)
• Immediately lead your ♣Q, setting the scene for club ruffs in dummy.
• South wins with the ♣A and sends back a trump. You win with your Ace and ... dammit! North shows out. That means South started with ♠Q8x. Which makes it impossible to ruff clubs more than once. (Try it: you'll be left with just the ♠J in dummy. South will cover with the ♠Q and eventually make a trick with the ♠8! It's those 'useful intermediates' at work again!) So we do need the hearts after all.
• Ruff a club in dummy. Leaving you with ♠J10 in dummy.
• Use the ♠J10 to take the marked finesse against South and clear trumps.
• Now lead your ♥J and proceed to take three heart tricks, the ♦K and the remaining trumps in your hand.

So there you have it: 12 tricks on a combined 27 points. Six trump tricks, one club ruff, two diamond tricks and three more in hearts.

It was South's puny ♠8 that prevented you doing things the easy way by ruffing two clubs. And it was your plucky ♥9 that allowed you to replace the lost club trick with an extra trick in hearts.


Postscript

At Box, everyone made 11 tricks in 4♠.

You were in good company, as only two pairs at Bath BC made 12 tricks. Only one pair bid the slam and they (naturally) went one off.

Last week we had to establish extra tricks for a no trump contract (Pay now, live later, on the Declarer Play (No trumps) page) by the simple expedient of forcing out an opponent's high card. Now let's try our hand at planning a suit contract.

With a marginal 11-pointer, North chooses to pass, South opens 1♥ and with just 7 losers North is happy to raise straight to 4♥. West leads the ♠J, dummy goes down ... and you're South, needing to make 10 tricks with hearts as trumps.

On Wednesday, all three tables were in the same contract, all got the same lead, and all went one off! Yet the contract is perfectly makeable.

So - over to you. As always, before you play to the first trick, make a plan!

First Thoughts: winners and losers

OK, winners. Doesn't look too great, does it? You have just 8 winners off the top (5 trumps and the other 3 aces), and somehow have to generate two more.

And then your losers. It looks as if you have a spade loser, two losers in diamonds and a possible club loser as well: four. That's one too many.

(At trick 1, you should play your ♠Q from dummy, just in case West led his ♠J from ♠KJ10, but sadly, it doesn't work: East covers the ♠Q with the ♠K, and you win with your ♠A - so you do definitely have a spade loser.)

Think positive: losing a loser - gaining a winner

Can you see a possible way of avoiding one of those losers (and gaining a winner at the same time?) Hint: take a finesse.

Yes, that's right. You have to hope that the ♣K is with East, rather than West. At some point, you will lead a small club from dummy towards your ♣Q. If East holds the ♣K, you will have lost your club loser and gained a club winner.

Let's just dwell on that for a moment longer. If the ♣K is 'right', you have a chance of making your contract. If it's 'wrong', you have no chance of making your contract. Therefore, you have to assume that it's right, because that's your only chance.

OK. By thinking positive, we've persuaded ourselves that we have 9 tricks ...

Ruff stuff: finding the 10th trick

... but where's the 10th trick coming from?

Let's see: we have a spade trick; 5 trump tricks; a diamond trick; and (with luck) 2 club tricks.

Perhaps we can gain a trick by ruffing something ... but what? There seem to be two possibilities:
 

• • we could take our club tricks and then ruff a club in dummy
  • or we could lose a spade trick and then ruff a spade in hand.

One of these ideas will gain us an extra trick. One won't. Which is the one we want? And why? If you can't decide, highlight the hint below.

We already have 5 trump tricks. We need the ruff to be our 6th trump trick.

Right again. We can ruff a club if we like, but it doesn't gain us anything, because we were going to win a trick with the ♥6 anyway.

Spades, however, are a different story. This time, we're going to get a trick by ruffing in the South hand, but the North hand still has 5 trumps, so we're making 5 trump tricks plus one spade ruff. As you remember from your Beginners' class: ruffing in the short trump hand gains a trick; ruffing in the long trump hand doesn't.

Putting the plan into action

So hang on. What are we doing? Ah yes, we're ruffing a spade (one extra winner) and finessing in clubs (the other extra winner). Once you've made a plan it helps to remember what you've decided to do!

Here's how it goes. (Strong recommendation: click on Show all hands, make up the four hands with cards and actually play it out.)

• Win the first trick (as described above) and lead another spade immediately.
• Let's say West wins and returns a diamond. East plays the ♦Q and you win with the ♦A.
• Now we want to ruff that spade, but we're in the wrong hand. How to get out to dummy? With a trump - so at trick 3, a low heart to the Ace. Ouch! - West has no hearts (so East has four!), but that's OK. We can deal with that later.
• So, we lead our last spade from dummy and trump with the ♥J (just in case West is now void in spades and tries to overruff).
• Now to clear trumps (remembering that East still has ♥9xx). First run the ♥10, then your last heart to the ♥K, and finally lead the ♥Q, dropping East's last trump.
• And finally, the moment of truth. With bated breath, you lead a small club from dummy, East plays low, you play the ♣Q ... and it wins. Half the time, it won't, but this time it did, and that's good enough.
• And now it only remains to cash your ♣A, and the remaining trump in dummy is your 10th trick.

Contract made. You found your two extra winners, one via a successful finesse and the other by ruffing in the short suit. A 4-0 trump split notwithstanding.
But don't for a moment imagine that you will make the contract if you don't stop to make a plan. If you unthinkingly bang out four rounds of trumps ('Well, I had to clear trumps, didn't I, partner?') you won't have one left in your hand to ruff a spade, and that'll leave you one trick short.

Postscript

And at Bath BC? All were in hearts, though two pairs didn't bid game. And amazingly, just over half of declarers failed to make 10 tricks. Which meant that if you'd been playing in Bath last Thursday and had bid and made 4♥, you would have chalked up 20.7 matchpoints out of a possible 24: that's more than 86%. Worth a few moments' (or even a couple of minutes') thought.

Here's a hand which offers several different ways of making 12 tricks. But first the auction, mainly from South's point of view.

Your partner (who you later discover opened a trifle light, with 11 points and 8 losers) opens 1♠, and East comes in with a 2♣ overcall. You reply 2♦, showing your longer suit first (yes, you could have made a negative double, but let's not get into that now), and West passes. Partner rebids 2♠, and at this point you're thinking 'slam'. Why? Well, for one thing you've found a fit (in spades); for another you have 18 HCPs opposite an opening bid; and for yet another, you have a shortage in the very suit in which your opponents have strength.

Your 4NT agrees spades as trumps, your partner's 5♠ response shows 2 key cards and the Queen of trumps, and with just one keycard missing you confidently bid 6♠.

East leads his ♣A, you lay down your hand as dummy, and you now change seats and become North, who has the task of making 12 tricks.

  The play  

OK. Looks good, doesn't it? You've lost the first trick. Fine. So all you have to do is take the rest.

So we go through the normal routine. First, assuming no mishaps, how many top tricks have you got?

I make it 10: 5 trump tricks, 3 in diamonds and 2 in hearts.

So where are your other two tricks coming from? (There's nothing too tricky here - just the need for a sensible plan of action.)

Let's start with a couple of dodgy options:
 

• First, the diamonds. If they split 3-3, I have two extra diamond tricks, and that's that. Trouble is, that will only happen 36% of the time. But still, as long as they're no worse than 4-2 I can ruff the 4th round and still make one of my extra tricks.
• And second, the hearts. If the ♥Q is right, I can make a 3rd heart trick by finessing the ♥J.

So that's one possible plan: clear trumps and try the diamonds; if that doesn't quite work, ruff the 4th round and try the heart finesse. Well, it could well work (and East's overcall surely makes it more likely that he has the ♥Q).

But there's a much better and much simpler solution screaming at us - particularly after East's opening lead. Can you see it?

That's right: it's the standard method declarers use to make extra tricks in suit contracts: ruffing in the short trump hand. All you have to do is ruff two clubs in dummy: win the 2nd trick; ruff a club; get back to your hand; ruff another club; clear trumps; and cash all your winners. You'll make the 10 top tricks we counted earlier, plus two club ruffs in the short trump hand, giving you a total of 12 tricks.

Any dangers here? Well, clearly you have to do all this before you clear trumps, as otherwise you won't have any trumps left in dummy to ruff with ... so the only danger is that West may be short of clubs too (East overcalled in clubs, remember) and will overruff you. How likely is that? Think for a moment before reading on.

Well, there's no chance at all, is there? There are 9 clubs out there. What if West started with just 1? That gives East 8 clubs - no way is he going to overcall 2♣ with that holding; he's going to bid a preemptive 4♣. So you're safe to take one club ruff. OK, but it's just possible that he started with 7 clubs, isn't it? Then West will have just 2 and will overruff on the 3rd round of clubs ... Um, no he won't, because you hold ♠AKQJ109 and your ruff will be unbeatable!

Time to click and look at all the hands. The first thing you notice is that West has four trumps, but it doesn't matter at all: they're all small ones and you can clear them at your leisure.

But the next thing you notice (with disappointment) is that you couldn't have failed to make the contract however you had played it. The diamonds are indeed 3-3, so that would have worked. And yes, the ♥Q is in the right place for the finesse, which would also have worked. And West has 3 clubs anyway, so no need for all that careful calculation about ruffing power.

So all your careful planning has gained you nothing over the hoi polloi who just banged out their 12 tricks and got lucky. But in the long run, it'll get you handsome rewards, and you'll be one hand closer to being a good bridge player.

  Postscript  

At Bath BC, only 3 tables bid the slam, and of those one unaccountably managed to go one down. So well done Ray and Paul, who bid and made the slam on Wednesday.
 

It didn't happen like this (at least not at the Pavilion) but it might well have ...

The auction is real enough. With 16 points, a balanced hand and a heart stop, West makes a 1NT overcall over South's opening 1♥, North suggests spades but South, with 7 good hearts and encouraged by his partner's willingness to bid, takes a punt on 4♥.

Which leaves West with a tricky opening lead. Not wanting to lead away from her unguarded ♣K or ♠K, or from her ♦AQ, West decides to lead a trump. South is 99% certain to have the ♥A, so there's no danger that this will cost a trump trick.

South takes the first trick with the ♥9, and leads the ♥A, just in case West's ♥K is doubleton. It isn't. Now what to do?

Well, West has nearly all of the outstanding points and bid no trumps, so is likely to have both of the black kings. Wouldn't it be nice to lead ♣A and another club, leaving ♣QJ in dummy, on which he can then discard those nasty losing diamonds? Trouble is, as soon as West gets in, she's going to start cashing diamond tricks. So that's no good.

But we can get rid of one of the diamond losers, by leading a spade to dummy's Queen, then discarding a diamond on dummy's ♠A. Not great, but better than nothing.

So off we go. Small spade to the ♠Q, which wins. Lead dummy's ♠A and discard a diamond from hand and ... Hey, a bonus! West drops the ♠K under the Ace. OK. Let's push our luck a little further. Lead the ♠J from dummy, dropping a 2nd diamond ... and  the luck holds. West has to trump with her ♥K: we've just discarded a loser on a trick the defence was going to make anyway!

All of which leaves us with just two more losers: one diamond and one club: ten tricks.

Only two pairs @ Bath managed the 10 tricks, and this could have been how it was done. Or could it have been an unwise opening lead of a small club away from the ♣K? I leave you to imagine how it might have gone from there ...
 

Well done if you kept your concentration up for the whole session. We came across various ways in which Declarer can glean useful information for his or her cunning plan. One was bidding (or the lack of it) by the opposition, and another was the opening lead (we found the Rule of 11 particularly informative). Either of which, in conjunction with a careful initial point-count (so that we know how many HCPs the opposition hold), can help us place missing high cards with one opponent or another.

Sometimes, as in this hand, things become clearer as the play progresses.

You're South. You open 1NT, and after a conversation in which North shows game-going points with a 5-card spade suit, you become declarer in 4♠.

West leads the ♥2, down goes dummy, and you feel a quiet satisfaction as you can see a comfortable 10 tricks, the only losers being the two missing Aces and a possible trump loser.

Dream on! East takes the trick with her ♥A and returns a heart, which West ruffs - "Having none, partner." Next comes the ♣A, and you finally get in with your club King.

This isn't at all what you had in mind. The opposition have three tricks already, and it's essential that they don't get any more.

So that's the problem. How can you clear trumps without losing a trick to the ♠Q? Is it just a guess or can you do better than that?
 

This is a nice example of an auction that makes use of a 'trial bid'. Here's the theory:
 

• You open one of a major and your partner raises you to two. You've agreed your suit.
• You've got more than a minimum, and you're wondering whether to go on to game. You could just bid 3, saying "Partner, if you are maximum for your raise, go on to game", but this is pretty vague, and misses an opportunity to ask a more precise question.
• A trial bid is a way of focusing attention on your particular needs. After (say) 1♥ - 2♥, a (non-jumping) bid of any other suit (i.e. 2♠, 3♣ or 3♦) says: "Partner, I'm thinking of going on to game, but I'm a bit worried about this suit I've just bid. I've got at least two losers in it. Can you provide any help in this suit? If you can, or if you're a maximum (or both!), please bid game. If not, just sign off at the three level and we'll leave it there."
• 'Help' may consist of high cards, or a singleton or (even better) a void.

And how nicely that works here. Although very strong in the minor suits, South may have as many as three losers in spades, so bids 2♠, asking her partner for help. And holding the ♠A10, North goes straight to game. Holding a singleton spade, she'd do the same. But with a load of rubbish like 863 or J42 she'd sign off in 3♥.

What of the play? Imagine yourself sitting South. At our table, West led a trump. East won with the K and returned a diamond, which you win with your ♦A. How do you plan to make your contract?

[There's a discussion of the auction for this hand  on the Basic Bidding page, at the bottom.]

You're declarer, sitting West. North leads the ♦5 and dummy goes down. It's very much as you expected from the auction: a nice near maximum with 3-card heart support. Thank you, partner! (And thank goodness we aren't in 3NT, which would doubtless have attracted a spade lead, with disastrous consequences.)

Let's play the ... No, wait a minute. Make a plan before you play a card! How many tricks have we got? Well, if we're lucky we'll make 4 trump tricks. ♠A makes 5. At least 2 in diamonds, and at least two in clubs. That's nine. Where's the 10th coming from?

Think about the possibilities before you read on.
 

• One possibility is in clubs: if the ♣K is with South, we can finesse twice (if we can reach dummy enough times!) and make an extra trick.
• Another is diamonds: if North has led away from the ♦Q, we can steal a trick by inserting the ♦J from dummy at trick 1.
• But the best bet must be to ruff a couple of spades in dummy, creating not one but two extra tricks. Lovely.

So. What to do? No harm in putting up the ♦J, just in case. Then play the ♠A (to create a void in dummy). Come back to your hand with a club finesse (if it works - if not, simply win the next trick and carry on) and ruff your first spade. Then do it all over again.

[Hang on a minute, I again hear you say (quite reasonably). Aren't you supposed to clear out their trumps at the first opportunity to stop them ruffing? Well, yes, but if you do that you won't be able to ruff any spades, will you, because there won't be any trumps left in dummy. More to the point, that'll leave you with 2 spade losers in your hand, plus (at least) one trump loser ... so if the ♣K is wrong, you'll have lost 4 tricks - one off!]

But this is all getting a bit theoretical. Let's actually do it and see what happens.

Trick 1: Up with the ♦J. Alas, South puts in the ♦Q, so you win in your hand with the Ace.

Trick 2: As planned, a small spade out to your ♠A.

Trick 3: Heart-in-the-mouth time. You lead a small club and put in the ♣J from hand ... And it wins!

Trick 4: Again as planned, lead a spade and ruff it in dummy with the ♥3.

Trick 5: That was good - let's try it again! Another small club from dummy and South plays the ♣K, which you beat with your Ace.

Trick 6: Now it's time to ruff our last spade with the ♥6. We've won six tricks out of six and the lead's in dummy.

What now? Tempted to make another club trick? Don't be. South went up with the King last time, so maybe he only had two to start with. No. If you remember, we delayed clearing trumps because we wanted to get those spade ruffs. That's all done now, so it's time to get trumps out of the way ...

Trick 7: Lead dummy's last trump (the ♥10). South plays the King! Goodness. Does he only have one heart? That means North's got the other four. But no matter. Win the trick with your ♥A and ...

Trick 8: ... lead your ♥J. North wins with the Queen, you discard a diamond from dummy and North shows out, as you expected.

Now if North is silly enough to lead another trump, you aren't going to lose any more tricks at all. He'll probably lead a spade, in which case you ruff in your hand, clear away one of his two remaining trumps by leading the 9 ... and in the end he'll make his ♥8 by ruffing a diamond. (Yes, that first diamond lead was a singleton.)

So you make an excellent 11 tricks. (Note what happens if, at trick 7, you unwisely try to take that third round of clubs. South ruffs with his (singleton!) ♥K, and returns a diamond (his partner's lead). North ruffs, and eventually takes one more trick in hearts. You're still home, but with one fewer trick.

And now (if you're still there) ... admit it. Your eyes (and brain) glazed over at around Trick 5 and you began to lose track. Unsurprisingly. There's a lot going on. But it's so much easier if you're actually holding the cards in your hand. Press the Show all hands button, use a real pack of cards and lay them out on the table, and play the hand out for yourself.
 

The #1 suggests that this was supposed to become a series, but it didn't! Don't know why.

You're declarer in 4♠, sitting South. West leads, ♥AK and a third heart, which you ruff with your ♠2.
That's one trick. You can see a further 8 tricks off the top: ♦AK, ♣AK and four trump tricks. That's nine.

How are you going to make your 10th trick? Plan your play.