Ambrose Bierce said, “There is nothing new under the sun, but there are lots of old things we don’t know.” We should spend every day trying to learn more things.

We are looking at deals in which a defender uses the point-count to place the unseen honors and work out how he might be able to beat the contract.

In this example, South is in three no-trump. West leads the spade nine. South wins the trick and runs the club queen to East’s king. How should East continue?

With a low doubleton, it was normal for North to use Stayman in the hope of uncovering a 4-4 heart fit.

East should count up the high-card points. He has nine, dummy holds 11, and South promised 15-17. That leaves 3-5 for West. Given the play so far (the spade-nine top-of-nothing lead denying an honor in the suit and South’s presumably holding the club queen-jack for the trick-two finesse), West is marked with one of the red aces – but which one?

Well, if it is the diamond ace, that will not be sufficiently helpful. At best, the defenders will take two hearts, one diamond and one club. But if West has the heart ace, the defenders can come out ahead if East carefully shifts to the heart two; he must resist the temptation to cash the king first, in case West started with ace-doubleton .

As you can see, this defense – assuming West wins the trick and returns his second heart! – defeats the contract.

Never stop counting those points.