DAILY BRIDGE CLUB

Four defensive tricks will defeat a major-suit game, but defenders have so much to think about that they often forget first principles.

Today’s North might have doubled West’s three diamonds; North-South would be plus 500. But North preferred to support South’s spades, and they landed at game.

West led the king of diamonds: eight, deuce, three. He cashed the ace and then shifted to a heart, hoping East had the king. South won, forced out West’s ace of trumps, won the next heart, drew trumps and claimed.

West prevails if he counts possible defensive tricks. He knows East’s deuce of diamonds is a singleton — with a doubleton, East would signal high — so West can give East a second-round ruff. Since West’s ace of trumps is a fast reentry, he can get a club ruff himself — if he leads a club at Trick Two.

South wins and leads a trump. West wins, leads his lowest diamond (a suit-preference signal) for East to ruff and ruffs the club return for down one.

Daily question

You hold: ♠ A7 ♥ 1054 ♦ AKJ9654 ♣ 8. Your partner opens 1NT (15 to 17 points). The next player passes. What do you say?

Answer: You have options. One is to blast into six diamonds, giving the opening leader no help. (At matchpoint duplicate, you might risk 6NT to play at the highest-scoring strain.) An alternative is to start slowly by showing a good hand with a diamond suit (however your bidding system allows). You may have a grand slam. West dealer E-W vulnerable