DAILY BRIDGE CLUB:

This week’s deals have treated drawing inferences: using clues from the bidding and play to guide you.

Try today’s deal as a defensive problem. Cover the West and South cards and defend as East. Against three diamonds, your partner leads the king of hearts. South takes the ace and leads the king of trumps: four, six, ace. How do you continue?

Declarer has spade and club losers — or so you must assume if the defense is to have a chance. If he has a club loser, you should wonder why he didn’t return a heart at Trick Two to set up a discard in dummy. The logical explanation: He had three hearts and can’t get a fast discard.

You should lead the nine of hearts at Trick Three. West will win and return a spade, and you win and give him a heart ruff.

Then West will lead a club, and South can take dummy’s ace but must go down one. He must lose either a club or, if he discards his last club on dummy’s high heart, a second ruff to West.

DAILY QUESTION: You hold: ♠ A83 ♥ 9642 ◆ A 5 ♣ K Q 10 8. Your partner opens one heart, and you respond 2NT (a conventional forcing raise). He then bids three spades. What do you say?

ANSWER: In the most popular method, partner’s bid of a new suit after your 2NT shows a singleton there. If he has a spade singleton, your ace is an ideal card, and you may make slam even if his high-card values are minimum. Cuebid four diamonds.