This is aHand:

This series of six deals continues the theme of the Negative Double and how we can use it when the opponents are eating up the bidding space in a contested auction.

A Double by responder, called a Negative Double, enables the responder in a competitive auction to bid four-card suits. Enormously useful, this bid keeps you in auctions where you might otherwise have to Pass.

We like our (South) hand - lots to like with the shape and texture, all those honorettes (intermediate cards, if you prefer), points placed in our long suits, few wasted values. Naturally, we open with 1♣.

West's 1♦ overcall promised a nice Diamond suit, although not necessarily an opening bid. Partner (North's) Negative Double is perfect, just perfect. He's bidding both majors, forcing for one round, and showing us where eight of his cards are.

East shows some spirit, and raises his partner's overcall. And now it's our turn.

We have two jobs to perform with our next bid. We need to tell partner we have a Spade fit, but equally important, we need to show our point count. We have a hand in the minimum range for an opening bid (12-14 points or so), and thus we respond with a minimum Spade bid: 2♠. If we had 15-17 (or thereabouts), we'd invite with 3♠, and with 18-20, we'd go directly to game. Note that we don't have to bid over 2♦, we could Pass, but we bid because we know we have a trump fit.

We've done our bit, so we expect partner to do his. No, he passes the buck with 3â™ . We have a tight call now but are swayed by the Tens and Nines of the hand. Pass could easily be the right bid but winning strategy at bridge is to bid close game contracts. (Perhaps we ought to add that making these tight contracts adds to the success of this strategy).

Now the fun starts as the play in 4♠ begins. Our Count shows our losers to be: two Diamonds off the top and possibly two Clubs to lose later. Our Plan is to find a way to keep the club losers to one. This will involve us in counting.

The easiest person to count is going to be East. His response suggests 6-9 points. Since West overcalled, he can have as low as 8 points (ish) with a decent suit, so we're not too sure about him. Let's keep our eye on East.

Tricks 1 and 2 go to the enemy's Diamonds, with us ruffing in on trick 3. We notice that East has played the ♦Q, worth two points.

At tricks 4, 5 and 6 we pull trumps. We do not plan to ruff any losers in dummy, so there is no reason to hold off this play. Now we go after the Hearts. We end in dummy, take a deep breath and think.

East has only shown up with the ♦Q.  The Clubs out against us are the ♣A and ♣Q. East surely must have the ♣A. He might have both, but he HAS to have the ♣A in order to have had enough points to raise his partner to 2♦. We are going to lead the Club from dummy and (barring the appearance of the ♣A) insert our ♣K.

And we are right. The ♣A is in East, right where we needed it to be and right where we reasoned it to be. 

Let's review what we have done here. It all began with our plan. We knew the contract depending on bringing the Clubs home with no more than one loser. We played out as many cards as we could, keeping our eye on East.

(A little digression and a confession. We find it very difficult to count everything... and we expect you're the same. The key is to pick the one thing, that if you can count it, will save you. On this hand, the easiest thing to count was East. We know he had 6-9 points. We just count them as he plays them.)

East showed up with the ♦Q. Nothing else as the hand went on. We know East ought to have 6 points. Ergo, he must have the ♣A. Our plan, to locate the ♣A, worked.