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The accomplished declarer is like a fine detective. He does a lot of legwork, gathering up all the information he can, before he finally gets around to cracking the case.

Take this deal where declarer is in six no-trump and West leads the king of hearts. South would have an easy time making the slam if he knew exactly where the queen of diamonds was located. He would either play for the drop or take a finesse in the right direction to bring home 12 tricks.

But South does not know at the start of play which defender has the queen, and his job is to do whatever he can to determine the location of the missing damsel. To this end, by far his best shot is to play the jack of hearts at trick one!

Considerable merit is attached to this play, and in the actual deal it works like a charm. West can do no better than continue with a heart to South's ace, on which East discards a low spade, confirming that West started with seven hearts for his pre-emptive three-heart bid.

This goes a long way toward solving declarer's problem. South pursues his quarry by cashing three rounds of spades, learning that West started with two spades — neither more nor less — and also learning that West started with exactly two clubs when the A-K-Q of clubs are next cashed.

The question of how to play the diamonds is now solved. West is known to have started with precisely seven hearts, two spades and two clubs, and therefore exactly two diamonds.

So South cashes his two high diamonds without giving a thought to a finesse, and the slam comes marching home.