Surprisingly few players seem to play suit preference signals, though they are not at all difficult to understand or make use of when required. Here is an example of the very basic suit preference signal, though in the actual deal, Deep Finesse would have made the contract despite the defenders’ use of the signal. Yes, the suit preference signal can also help declarer if declarer knows that that is what it is!

Board 8 from Friday 5/04/24
Dealer W Nil Vul

	9 Q765 J742 QJ64
Q85 KJ942 KT8 K5		J732 83 AQ653 A9
	AKT64 AT 9 T8732

This deal comes from the archives because I had a question from one of my regular readers, Sam, who asked about opening leads of singleton trumps. He has heard me say often enough that the lead of a singleton trump is one of the worst imaginable, because a) the first thing every declarer does when playing a hand is to draw trumps, so why do it for him and b) it is almost certain to solve any two way finesse problem if there is one. However, just to put it into context, I always add the proviso that there should always be a reason for doing what you do, especially when you make an opening lead, because the opening lead sets the scene for the rest of your defence, and the opening lead should tell your partner what you are hoping to achieve on defence. I then dug out this particular deal from my archives, a series I labelled “Ultimate Defence”. The reader may like to look at the deal and treat it as a double dummy problem before I continue the story in DD18.

Dealer West All Vul; Teams

	982 A852 2 QT653
5 6 AQJT75 AKJ94		KQT63 QJT7 K96 2
	AJ74 K943 843 87

This defence should not have needed to be ‘double dummy’ but escaped quite a few NS pairs when East played in 4S after a competitive auction. I suggest that NS should bid to 4H and EW take the sacrifice in 4S, which should be doubled. But let’s not talk about the bidding because there are lessons to be learnt about defence.

Board 20 from Tuesday 5/02/24
Dealer W All Vul

	J T9853 AT86 A82
K642 KQJ 4 KQJ95		Q98753 7 Q52 763
	AT A642 KJ973 T4

The obsession with No Trumps has the potential to either win in a big way, or deservedly crash in flames. Why do so many bridge players have this obsession with bidding No Trump slams rather than the far easier to make minor suit slam? I don’t have a ready answer for that, but Deep Finesse does, because DF can see all the hands and knows that 7NT can be made by NS on this deal. So can 7D but 7D does not require the same virtually impossible layout that 7NT requires.

Board 19 from Wednesday 28/02/24
Dealer S EW Vul

	A6 A964 KQ76 AJ7
J532 KQJT53 J9 5		T74 72 83 Q98642
	KQ98 8 AT542 KT3

What can we learn, if anything, from this deal, which tells us that Deep Finesse can make 4S EW but not 4H! So, what’s the difference? When you see the deal for Board 5 you’ll see little difference between the hearts and spades: both have a 5-3 fit but there appear to be two heart losers and only one spade loser. Yet, DF says EW can make 4H but not 4S. Let’s see if we can work out why, then, 4H makes but not 4S.

Board 5 from Wednesday 14/02/24
Dealer N NS Vul

	QJ7 QT9 KQ9 A952
A8543 A6432 Q73		KT6 J87 AJ5 KJ84
	92 K5 T876432 T6