Believe it or not, almost any card will set five clubs barring the two that most players would be leading now.  

Any spade other than the queen, a diamond, and a club are all nearly certain to defeat five clubs.

A heart is hugely dangerous.  Here are the reasons.

South has a maximum of six club tricks.
He has a maximum of four diamond tricks.
South has no spade tricks coming so if he is going to make five clubs, he has to get a heart trick.  

How can he do that?

It is possible that East has the king of hearts, but it is not a lock.  The good news is that if East has the king of hearts, the defenders will get two more tricks before the hand is over.  South, no matter what his hand, will have to deal with the heart suit.

The hand that West is catering to is the one where South has the king of hearts.  If he does have it, West’s not leading a heart now will force South to play on the hearts himself.

South has the six club tricks you expected and the four diamond tricks you worried about, and he has so many hearts that he can’t get rid of them on the diamonds.  West, if he ever leads a heart, will give South the contract.  As long as West counts declarer’s tricks, he will see that there are not enough.  West does not bang down the ace of hearts because he knows that doing so might give South that elusive eleventh trick.  A thoughtful defense.

BONUS.  I won’t give you the answer to this question.  Work out how South can make five clubs if West ducks the first club.

Here are my thoughts on each of these five hands.

#1
J 7 6 3
A 4 2
8 5 3
A 9 4

This is an impossible hand for East to have. He should have raised to two hearts. Why look for a major suit fit when you have a perfectly good major suit fit already? Raise to two hearts. That shows 6-9 support points, which is exactly what you have.

#2
A K 10 5 4
Q 6
9 8 5 3
7 4

This is the best of the possible hands East can have. It has nine good points, which is about as many as West can hope for. It also has a doubleton heart, which is typical of preference bids. The queen doubleton of hearts is pretty good stuff under the circumstances.

#3
K 9 7 6 5
8 3 2
8 5 2
Q 5

This is a possible hand. It looks pretty awful, but it does have three trumps and what turns out to be a nice queen of clubs. This is not the worst of these five hands.

#4
K Q J 7 4
9 3
8 6
9 6 5 3

This is the bad one. It has no help in either of West’s suits and it has all of its strength in spades where may be of no value to West.

#5
Q 9 5 4 3
10 9 2
6 4
A Q 3

This is not a possible hand. East should raise to two hearts. If you bid one spade and later take a preference to two hearts, West will suspect you of having a preference-type hand like hands 2, 3, and 4. With decent heart support and raise points, it is best to raise and not confuse the issue.

SUMMARY

Most of the time, East’s auction suggests just two hearts. This is a bad sign for a heart contract. If East happens to have three hearts, he ought to have a pretty wretched hand on the lines of Hand 3.

Look at Hands 2, 3, and 4, which are possible hands for East to have.

Game is poor or impossible on Hands 3 and 4 and is not a favorite to make on Hand 2, which is the best hand of the lot.

West should pass it out in two hearts. It is important for West to know that East will raise when it is right and not be distracted into bidding spades unnecessarily.

1. There are many meanings you can give to East’s play of the nine and five of spades.
2. He may be trying to show he has two trumps.
3. He may be trying to give you a suit preference signal for hearts.
4. He may be trying to tell you that he can ruff something. If this is so, the suit is most likely to be diamonds.
5. He may be trying to show that he has three trumps.
6. He may have been trying to fool declarer. Perhaps East thinks that you have the queen of trumps and was trying to look like a defender with the doubleton Q9 when he played the nine.

Which, if any, of these things do you think partner means? Or is it possible that your partner is just kidding and doesn’t really mean anything at all?

I’ll give you a hint. East should not be throwing his cards on the table in willy-nilly fashion. He should have a purpose. A defender who plays the card nearest to his thumb will lose his partner’s interest. On those occasions where a signal is important, the sloppy defender will find his partner isn’t watching because there is usually nothing to see. The correct answer is one of the five choices listed. Which one applies to your partnership?

Here is my opinion of each of them. You may draw your own conclusions.

1. East should not be showing a doubleton. The reason is that on occasion, East will have a doubleton ten or jack or queen, and it will be dangerous to play the high card. It is true that in other suits, the correct play with a doubleton is to play high-low, but not in trumps.
2. This is a reasonable treatment. It has merit. There is a problem with this treatment, though, in that it often does not work. Say, for instance, you are dealt a singleton ten of trumps. Declarer plays one round, you follow with the ten, and your partner, who is winning the trick, looks at your ten and thinks you are giving a suit preference. Comes the shift. And, unfortunately, it wasn’t what you wanted. Too bad. Because of the elements of uncertainty, I do not recommend this treatment, although it has its moments.
3. Telling partner that you want to ruff something is laudable, but it is also rare that this signal will come to anything. When defenders have a ruff coming, declarer is usually busy drawing trump. The usual meaning of this message is, “I could have ruffed something, but by the time you get in, it will be too late.”
4. This is the meaning I suggest. Rather than use the high-low to show some special message, such as in points two and three, I like the high-low in trumps to say that you have an ODD number of trumps. This information will help partner in more ways than you might imagine. Here is one such. The bidding goes as follows.
   

   NORTH	SOUTH
   	1NT
   2	2
   4	Pass

   West has only the singleton two of spades and is hoping that East has four of them. Here are the trumps that West sees after making his opening lead.

   	North A Q J 3
   West 2

   South wins the opening lead, whatever it was, and plays the ace, queen, and jack of spades. East follows with three little ones. At this point, how many trumps do you think South has? Since he opened one notrump, you would tend to think South has four spades. If you and partner give count in trump as shown above, you will be able to tell what is happening in spades. Say East followed with the four, five, and eight. East has played his spades in ascending order. This shows he has an even number. Therefore, you know that both declarer and East started with four of them. If, on the other hand, East played the eight, four, and five, you would know that he had just three. The sneaky South player has opened one notrump with a five card spade suit. On defense, such information is useful. I suggest you try to tell partner how many trumps you have and hope for the same information in return. Obviously, declarer knows how many trumps are missing. The news won’t be new to him. But the news might be useful for partner.

5. This is the fifth and final meaning for partner’s nine of spades. I suggested that if partner had the 9x, he might play the nine hoping to fool declarer. This can work, but trying it is at the cost of fooling partner too. Try this once in a while to give your opponents something to think about, but for the most part, keep your cards honest. Partner will appreciate this.

Passed hand bidding is not easy. Many of your forcing bids are no longer available and what few substitutes you have are not adequate. Of the six choices, the only one that makes sense is four clubs. Here are my objections to the other choices.

Three spades – This is just plain inadequate. Even if partner has a dog, there should be some kind of play for game.

Four spades – Also inadequate. This will get you to game so it is a better bid than three spades, but it does nothing to help partner look for a slam.

Two diamonds is too scary to contemplate. It might get passed out.

Three diamonds has merit since it is a jump shift. It has merit, though, only if it promises a spade fit.

Drury can work, but it will be hard to convince partner that this is your hand.

It is the splinter that gets my attention. It tells partner you have four or more super trumps plus it identifies a major aspect of your hand. Partner won’t know that you are void in clubs, but he will know you have a singleton along with other features.

	NORTH	SOUTH
		Pass
	1	4
	4	?

Partner thinks enough of his hand that he cue-bids four diamonds. Do you bid four spades or do you think enough of your hand to do more? Here are your choices.

1. Four spades
2. Five spades
3. Five clubs

Of these bids, I reject four spades. Partner is showing a willingness to look for slam and he is missing the AK of trumps. It is hard to imagine a hand that he can have which is not safe at the five level.

Five spades is OK since it shows more enterprise, but I still prefer five clubs. Five clubs shows a void now and invites more news from partner.

	NORTH	SOUTH
		Pass
	1	4
	4	5
	5	?

What now? Partner has bad spades yet is still cue-bidding. Choose from these bids.

1. Five spades
2. Six spades
3. Six clubs

Since partner is continuing to show features, I can’t imagine stopping in five spades.

Six spades is OK here, but it gives up on seven. Heck. If partner has the two red aces and the king of diamonds, seven spades will be playable. Why bid six spades and give up on seven when seven is still a likelihood?

Bid six clubs and hope partner can bid six diamonds.

	NORTH	SOUTH
		Pass
	1	4
	4	5
	5	6
	6	?

Nuts. Partner has the wrong king. Sign off in six spades and expect it to be cold, with seven sometimes being on a finesse.

Here are the two hands. How should you play six spades with the king of clubs lead?

	North Q 9 8 4 2 A K 9 A 7 3  A 8
	South A K 10 7 6 10 8 4 Q 10 9 8 4 —

Do not rush to guess the diamond suit. Ruff the club lead with the ten. A tiny safety play to cater to West’s having eleven clubs! Draw trumps (they divide two-one). Now you can discard dummy’s heart on the ace of clubs, play the ace and king of hearts, and ruff a heart. With clubs and hearts eliminated, you can lead the ten of diamonds for a finesse. Whatever West wins with, he has to give you a sluff and a ruff or lead a diamond. Either clears up your problems.

If you returned a diamond, you set two hearts one trick. If you tried to cash the ace of spades, minus 110.

The winning play is a diamond but the reasoning is what counts here.

Count declarer’s winners. He has four heart tricks. He has three diamond tricks.

Your partner’s queen of clubs suggests he has the jack as well. If East started with three clubs to the queen, that would leave South with six of them, a most unlikely holding.

This means that if you return a diamond, South will have only seven tricks. After taking his diamonds and his heart, you will get the last trick with your ace of spades or your partner’s jack of clubs.

This is a nasty hand because the illusion is that declarer has lots of winning tricks. Only if you count them will you see he is short one winner.

Just for the record, East was a wimp during the bidding. He had an easy two club bid. Not that this would have affected the bidding greatly, but East’s pass is symptomatic of someone who is being too conservative.

DO YOU HAVE AN UNDERSTANDING?

Having good understandings will give you the answer. Does your partnership know what the partnership lead is when you have three cards in a suit?

Does it make any difference to you if your partner has bid the suit?

Does it make any difference to you if you have supported this suit?

Current thinking dictates that you lead a low card when you have three or four cards to an honor in partner’s suit. (Count the ten as an honor.) If East West agree with this rule, East will play West for only two clubs and will cash the king of clubs. As you can see from the layout, it is necessary to defend this way.

This agreement is a good one to have. There are many many cases where leading the honor card will cost a trick. Even if it doesn’t cost a trick, your partner may be confused about how many cards you have in the suit. Adopting this lead rule will help in many ways.

A second, but equally important question, is what West should lead if his clubs are the 753. If he is going to lead this suit, should he lead the three, the five, or the seven?

In advance of this discussion, I will tell you that leading the five is awful. Do not lead the middle card when you have three of them. Your partner won’t be able to read your lead and he may try to give you a ruff or he may play you for an honor. Why give your partner two ways to go wrong?

My choice is this.

If I have not supported the suit, I lead the small card. My partner may err by thinking I have an honor in the suit. This is not nice, but at least my partner won’t think I am ruffing the third round.

If I HAVE supported the suit, then I lead the top card. Because I raised, my partner will know I don’t have a doubleton, and by leading a high card, he will use the rule of eleven and determine that I don’t have an honor.

This is not a perfect method, but because it is consistent, your partner will do the right thing more often than when you have no method at all.

Let me finish with this observation. Leading from three small cards is a lousy way to start a defense. When the best choice you have is to lead from three little cards, you are not having a good day.

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By the time the last heart comes at you, you will have to come down to three cards. This is unfortunate because you need to keep one club to stop declarer’s jack from scoring and you need to keep three spades. That is one more card than you are allowed to keep. According to your discard, West takes a spade finesse and wins the thirteenth trick with the jack of clubs or the seven of spades.

This is sad, but it is preventable. If South returns a trump, or even a spade, West won’t be able to ruff three diamonds in his hand and still be able to squeeze you. Only if you return the automatic diamond (or a club) can West come to twelve tricks.

You can afford to throw your spades, but not your hearts. Partner has given you the clue. Did you notice it? When South played three rounds of diamonds, East played, in order, the two, ten, and six. East has gone out of his way to play diamonds in an abnormal sequence. Assuming your partner does not play random cards and that he is trying to help you defend, you can infer that partner has something in spades. You should keep your hearts and give up the spade suit.

Declarer will try the hearts, but when they don’t divide, he will have to fall back on the spade finesse, which will lose. Down one. If West had discarded a heart, 6NT would have made. The key was East’s play of the ten of diamonds at trick two. It was an abnormal play which carried a message.

West had to notice it and then he had to interpret it correctly.

East’s cards told West he could abandon spades in order to save hearts. Because East WENT OUT OF HIS WAY to signal in diamonds, West was entitled to look for a message. If East had played diamonds in normal order, that is 2, 6, 10, there would have been no message intended.

This really was a nice defense. West has one point yet he has the setting trick if he can just tell what it is. Well done.

To know the right return now you need to know which spade partner played at trick two. I will tell you that he played the jack. This is a standard suit preference situation. It is not an information situation. You already know exactly what partner has in spades. His jack of spades is trying to tell you that his entry is in hearts. It looks strange to return a heart but partner told you to. Listen to him.

I have said that suit preference takes a secondary role in defence to other signals. They are an important part of good defense, though, as long as they are used without confusion. There are two or three common situations. This is one of them. West wants to tell East that he has a heart entry. As you can see, West has to get the message across right away. West doesnÕt have time to waste. This is an unusual hand in that declarer has a hidden seven card suit.

Normally, East could return a diamond or even a club and survive. But not this time. Better have your signals in order.

This depends on what you think is happening. You can see three diamond tricks for declarer. You know about three spade tricks because of West’s thoughtful queen of spades play. It denied the king, so declarer has it.

West’s spades must be Q1087 to account for his fourth best lead of the seven. Declarer is likely to have the AK of clubs. It would be strange for declarer to enter his hand with the ace of clubs if he didn’t have the king.

You should switch to the jack of hearts, hoping partner has the king and declarer the queen. This is a fair chance because partner can have five points. (South has announced 17, North has 8, and you have 10, leaving West with five.)

The key to the defense was West’s “information” signal of the queen of spades. It told East that the spades were not good yet and allowed East to proceed however he felt best. East was able to count declarer’s tricks and came to the conclusion there was not time to set up the spades. Hearts were the only hope for the defense and East tried them. This time, the defense had a happy ending. If West had routinely followed suit with the eight of spades East could be forgiven for leading a third spade instead of switching to hearts. West COULD have started with the K1087 of spades. Very few defenders would have thought of West’s play, but it makes sense if you think of it.