This is aHand:

Bidding.

Partner opens 1â™  as dealer and East Passes. Everyone else at the table is now looking at us to make a call.

Now, it may make us sick to do this with a horrible 1·4·3·5 shape and a miserable 6 points but we simply must bid with that South hand in response. Since we don't have the money needed to bid Clubs at the two-level we have no option but to make the bid of desperate responders everywhere, 1NT.

How many times have bridge players tried to justify Passing an opening bid by saying "I didn't like my hand"? Too bad. We have a partner and he probably doesn't want to play at the one-level in a suit contract with fewer trumps than the defenders.

After the 1NT response North adds up what he can see in front of his face (15 points) to our announced total (6 to 9) and finds it easy to calculate that a part-score is the limit of the deal. With a balanced hand himself (5·3·3·2) it is routine to Pass out 1NT. 2♠ would have been an appalling bid.

Play.

West leads the ♦Q from his five-card suit headed by a sequence and we settle down to Count and Plan. In No-trumps we count top tricks and here we have only three (one Spade and two Diamonds) We need, therefore, four more tricks and the Clubs, missing only the ♣A, should provide. Our concerns are entries and timing.

We need to keep an entry to the long Clubs in the South hand so the right play is to stick the ♦A on the ♦Q, preserving the ♦K to be used later as access to the Clubs. At trick two we start playing Clubs. On the third Club trick East, having meanly held his Ace back as long as he could, finally takes his ♣A.

Let's focus on East for a moment. He now has to lead something. Only a recently escaped mental patient would lead a Heart and the Spades aren't much more attractive so – sticking to first principles – he returns his partner's original Diamond lead and we're in with our ♦K. East knows we have the King, of course, his partner’s opening lead told him that. Still, there is nothing else for the defense to do.

Again a reminder: It's always wise to pause mid-hand for a recount. We see that we now have all the tricks we need, provided we cash the Club winners now that the lead is in the closed hand for the last time. Once we see that, we employ our hit and run strategy, cashing out our sure tricks.

Seven tricks come from one Spade, two Diamonds and four Clubs.

The essential card-play techniques of this deal? Preserve entries and play on the trick-producing suit.