This is aHand:

Bidding.

East opens 1♣ as dealer and rebids 1♠ over West’s 1♥ response.

West describes his hand neatly now by jumping to 3♣. Perhaps East will be able to show delayed Heart support or maybe bid 3NT?

No, East bids 3â™ , showing five of them, and, by inference, a six-card Club suit. Interesting!

West, not liking his two losing Diamonds and not being able to support Spades, retreats to 4♣. East is not going to Pass that – he goes on to the rare contract of 5♣.

Opening Lead.

What to lead against 5♣?

It might be right to lead a Diamond in the hope of grabbing two quick tricks there but the auction doesn’t really suggest partner has the Ace.

Declarer looks to have eleven black cards; dummy-to-be has no liking for Spades. Surely West will be ruffing Spades? So our job is to get as many trumps off the table in as short as possible a time.

Should we be able to employ the Nellie Defense (see Hand 2) and play trump, trump, trump we may have three natural Spade tricks.

Play.

Dummy duly presents itself with a 2∙5∙2∙4 hand and it is evident that we have two Spade tricks in defense. The crucial question is whether we can take three Spade tricks.

Declarer takes the trump on table and immediately, and naturally, plays on his side-suit. He leads a Spade and tries his luck with the Jack. We take the Queen and play a second trump. East wins that on table and plays another Spade, this time trying the Nine. Nope, it just ain’t your lucky day, pal.

We take the Ten and complete the Nellie Defense by leading a third round of trumps, reducing dummy to just one Club. Declarer ruffs a Spade with the last Club, dumps his losing Diamond on the ♥A and comes to hand with the ♦A. Had Spades broken 3-3 East would have been smiling – as it is, his frown is the depth of the Grand Canyon.

We have a sure Spade trick to come and 5♣ is one down.

“I’d have made that without a trump lead�, says East, sadly.

Postscript.

This is just another example of leading trumps when we have declarer’s side suit all sewn up. This deal is a cousin of Hand 4.