This is aHand:

Bidding.

The auction on this deal starts out with East opening 2NT (20-21, balanced), followed by a 3♣ Stayman enquiry by West (yes, we still can play Stayman over a 2NT opening bid), 3♥ from East and 3NT from West. Nothing too exciting here.

Play.

One of the dreaded questions we are often faced with: What do we lead?

Our options seem to be either a Spade or a Diamond. A careful analysis of the auction should immediately rule out a Spade, despite the suit being stronger. Why? Although neither opponent has bid Spades naturally, West's Stayman enquiry implies that he holds four Spades – why else would he bid 3♣ and not raise directly to 3NT?

With four Spades marked in West's hand, a Spade lead appears to have little future for the defense – therefore, the fourth best Diamond may well be a better option.

Declarer tries the ♦J from dummy but to East’s disappointment partner covers that with the ♦Q, forcing declarer's ♦K. At trick two we are faced with the ♣Q from declarer's hand – should we cover with the ♣K?

Definitely. As you can now see from the diagram, with a sight of all four hands, if we didn't cover, declarer would let his ♣Q ride, winning the trick. Our ♣K would pop up on air the next round of Clubs and now declarer would have four Club tricks.

Covering the ♣Q sets up partner's ♣10 as a third round winner. Note that if East had had the ♣10 then it probably wouldn’t matter whether we covered or not. (To be clear, it may still matter if declarer started with ♣Q 10 × and partner has ♣9 × × × where we still need to cover).

Now, leading the ♣Q is a clear misplay on declarer’s part, but it is the sort of misplay perpetrated daily in bridge games all over the world. Better would be to play a low Club to the ♣J and then the ♣A, fortunately picking up four Club tricks on this lie of the cards. In fact, this Club play (low to the Jack) is the best percentage play in the suit – however, not all of our opponents play perfectly, and when they don't, we must seize the opportunity and make sure we get the defense right.

After two rounds of Clubs, declarer changes tack by shifting to Hearts and plays a Heart to the ♥Q, ♥A, then another Heart. This enables declarer to take three Hearts, two Diamonds, two Clubs, and two Spades, just enough for his contract.

So there is nothing we could have done that would defeat this contract. Certainly we gave nothing away in defense so we mustn’t feel disheartened. In fact, we have done our best on this deal by not leading a Spade, which would have conceded a cheap trick.

Now, in many forms of bridge (“friendly� rubber bridge or Chicago scoring or in a teams game) overtricks are of minor importance but if you play in one of the commonest forms of the game, duplicate pairs, they can be essential.

In an ordinary duplicate game, played in most bridge Clubs across the world, with match-point scoring, restricting overtricks can mean a big difference in the scores. If every other North-South pair is conceding 430 and you are conceding a mere 400 you have the best score on the deal. Deals like this may enable you to win the event. Yes, really!