I must start by belatedly wishing Phil Shadick and his family bon voyage and all the best for the future as they move on to make a new life in British Columbia after many years in Bermuda.

Phil has been a Bridge Club member for years and for a long time shouldered much of the responsibility as a tournament director at the club.

He is an excellent bridge player who did not play enough, but more than that he was probably all one wanted as a player at the table — competitive and focused and yet at all times pleasant and polite.

Some of us get to three out of those four but few achieve all of them. Phil, best wishes.

This week’s hand is designed to get you out of your summer slumber and exercise those brain cells.

I am going to lead you through an essential part of good defence in bridge, visualising/constructing declarer’s hand to plan your defence, and then following through.

You are South. Right-hand opponent (East) opens 1 diamond, left-hand opponent bids one no trump and right-hand opponent raises directly to 3NT.

Partner leads the 6 of hearts and this dummy comes down.

North

SJ64

HAK3

DKJ109

CAK2

West

SAQ102

H1092

DQ42

C765

Declarer plays low and wins the trick with the heart queen and then plays a diamond to the nine, which you win with the queen — over to you.

First a word about the bidding. East West are playing a 15-17 NT, so East opened a diamond intending to jump to 2NT on his next turn showing 18-20 HCP.

If he had 21-22 he would have opened 2NT and if he had 23 plus he would open 2 clubs.

Once West responded 1NT, showing 6-10 HCP, East has no other bid but 3NT.

So, what do we know about the hand? Well, we know that declarer has 6-10 points, no four-card major or he would have bid it over a diamond, probably three hearts to the queen as partner probably led from a four-card suit, and probably three spades as partner may have led a spade with four. Also, on the play at trick two it would appear that partner has the diamond ace as with the ace declarer would probably have played it first and then finessed the queen. Don’t you know a lot?

Given all of that, declarer’s hand is almost certainly Kxx, Qxx, xxxx, Qxx with perhaps three diamonds and four clubs. Can it really be anything else given what you know? Right, now that you have figured all of that out, here is the full hand:

North

S753

HJ876

DA3

CJ983

West

SK98

HQ54

D8765

CQ104

East

SJ64

HAK3

DKJ109

CAK2

South

SAQ102

H1092

DQ42

C765

Well done clever one, but now what? I’ll give you a minute to think about it ...

Right, the minute is over.

You clearly have to attack spades but the card you play is crucial — a low spade will run to the jack and now you are in bad shape as the king is still behind you, so at trick three you must lead the devilish spade queen.

Declarer is dead. If he wins the king, partner leads another spade when in with the diamond ace and you take three spade tricks to go with the two diamonds.

What if declarer lets you hold the spade queen?

Simple, you now lead a low spade, forcing declarer to win and leaving partner with another spade to lead to you when in with the diamond.

Either way the contract is down one.

Not that difficult is it? The opponents give you a tonne of information from what they bid, and what they do not bid, and you must use all of that if you are to become a successful defender.